Facebook marketing and Facebook advertising can be one of the most effective marketing tactics for your startup or small business. While mastering Facebook marketing can seem like a daunting task—especially with 10 different campaign objectives to choose from—once you get the hang of it, it’s like riding a bike. We will say, the best place to start is with your audience. You can create the most awe-inspiring Facebook ad of all time, but if you’re not reaching the right audience, you are essentially riding that bike right off a cliff.

If you’re considering creating your own Facebook advertising campaign, this blog post is a great place to start—particularly in regards to discovering and choosing your audience. Keep reading for Marketing Supply Co.’s tips on how to go about creating both a relevant and specifically targeted audience for your ads.

Facebook Ads Should Face The Right Highway

While clever copy and an eye-catching images are an important key to Facebook advertising for startups, they don’t guarantee you success. You don’t want your “digital billboard” facing the wrong highway. Nor do you want too broad of an audience to view your Facebook ad either. Remember that people won’t care about your ad if it doesn’t speak to them.

Have a clear understanding of your goal and objective so you know who to target for your Facebook ad audience. This way you won’t waste money showing your ad to the wrong people. By figuring out the interests of the people you want to reach, you’ll be able to narrow down your audience significantly.

At the same time you don’t have to gear up for a long-drive, since your audience will evolve over time. However, small businesses should first create a target audience by being practical so they can test and learn without blowing their entire budget.

Research Specific Audience Traits

You likely have an idea of who your target market is if you’re creating a Facebook ad with an offer. But the more specific you get, the better results you’ll get. If your ad is offering a solution to a problem, dig deep to figure out what your audience’s pain points are so to better understand what will resonate with them.

For example, if the people you wish to connect with deeply care about sustainable foods—don’t we all, you should pinpoint various interests around that topic. This will help you create an audience segment where your ad will resonate. Think about the groups they’re connected to, the thought leaders they follow and the magazines they might be reading.

Finding niches—and fan pages for those niches—with large followings, can be extremely helpful. There might be events where those large followings attend. The deeper you go, the more detailed interests you’ll discover, that will help you close in on the right audience. Not to mention, putting in this effort to truly understand your audience and exist where they do will help your audience build an authentic relationship with your brand. 

Know The Location of Your Audience

Doesn’t matter if you live there, just make sure your customer does. When choosing your audience, you can broaden or narrow your reach based on city, state, and the country of your choosing. If you don’t service Canada, why bother showing your ad there?

Even if you wish for the world to know about your product, remember: relevancy matters to Facebook—a lot. If it helps, start narrowing down your needed locations, starting from the outside and moving inward. Typically, people within the United States target within, but if you keep going smaller you’ll start to see your projected audience size shrink. This means you’ll have accomplished narrowing your audience to the more relevant and interested people.

A startup/small business owner should push themselves to determine their target audience relevant to their product offerings. This will pay off quickly as your business becomes more marinated with the Facebook ad platform.

Now that you have a better idea of how to choose and target the best audience for your Facebook ads, start doing your research! “But mommmmm, I don’t want to.” Well, that’s where we come in. EVERY COMPANY SHOULD BE ABLE TO CRAFT, TRACK AND REFINE HIGH-IMPACT Facebook CAMPAIGNS – BUT NOT EVERY COMPANY HAS THE TIME OR RESOURCES to do so. THAT’S WHERE MARKETING SUPPLY CO., COMEs IN. Facebook ads, and other social ads, are our specialty. Let our team of experts do the heavy lifting for your Facebook ads so you can get back to doing what you do best; running your business.