by Sabri Suby
acquire a client who provides $24,000 in revenues over the lifetime value of
that client. Looking at it this way, you’re putting one dollar into your
advertising, and your earnings per click are essentially $12. Meaning that,
when you’re running Google Ads, if you can get clicks for anything less than
$12, you’re making money straight out the gate.
That brings me to sales volume. One thing I see rampant online is consultants
raving about getting an incredible return on their ad spend. A return on
investment is obviously the most important metric to look at. However,
there’s no point in spending $100 per month and getting a 12,000% return on
investment because it’s such a small scale. So while you want to look at
earnings per click, you also need to look at sales volume.
Naturally, as you start to spend more, your ROI may go down a little bit.
That’s one of the casualties of scaling up a campaign. But keep looking at
that top line revenue and what those earnings per click look like, and focus on
growing the revenue for your business, because that’s the life blood. That’s
the oxygen. There’s no point spending $100 on Google Ads a month and
making $1,200. Rather you should spend $1,000 and make $6,000 back.
While the ROI will be lower, your overall sales and bottom line profit will be
much higher.
Now let’s take a look at a platform that’s getting bigger and more important
every year, and how we can engage their users on a level that matches what
they’re already interested in. We’re going to cast our net for cold prospects,
and the only way to catch them is to speak their language and offer
something they can’t resist.
How To Write Facebook Ads That
Force Buyers To Read Every Word Of
Your Ads
Up until a few years ago, Google had the monopoly on traffic. However,
there’s been a dark knight rising, and that is Facebook. As this book goes to
print, there are over 2.2 billion monthly active Facebook users world-wide.
What’s particularly interesting is that 1.74 billion of those monthly active
Facebook users are coming from mobile. This means that 94% of Facebook’s
monthly active audience are accessing the app through their mobile device.
We know that whoever has the eyeballs is the one leading the industry. And
Facebook certainly has the lion’s share of eyeballs. It’s not hard to see that
when you look around, people are glued to this thing. Right?
There’s pretty much no-one you can’t reach through Facebook these days.
Everybody is on this thing and it’s only going to get worse – or better for us
as marketers and business owners! While you want to make sure you don’t
personally fall prey to this kind of vicious time-sucking vampire, it’s an
incredibly powerful platform for marketers. There’s such rich data and laser-
targeted criteria for reaching your hardest to reach, best prospects and dream
buyers, and you can access them in a matter of seconds.
We’ve looked at the three types of prospects you can attract into your
business. Google is fantastic for reaching those in hunt mode, but that’s really
a small subset of the market. Remember, it’s those prospects in the awareness
stage and the cold prospects who are the largest opportunity for scale in your
market. And with Facebook, you can laser in on those who are good
candidates for your services even though they may not even know it yet.
So let’s look at how people are engaging on this platform. What’s the content
they’re really hungry for? What is it they’re clicking on the most? Where do
their interests lie and what are the most shared pieces in this space?
BuzzSumo is a powerful online research tool that shows us the kind of
content that gets shared the most. On Facebook in 2017, BuzzSumo shows us
that breaking news articles and exclusives made up the largest and most
popular category in terms of shares and engagement.
This is what I want to get you thinking about as business owner or marketer
when positioning your services on this platform. Because that’s a hook and
an angle you can really go for.
True, these categories are competing with hip-hop video clips and animal
videos, which get shared a lot too. But these aren’t going to be things you can
leverage to get attention. It’s content that reports some sort of findings, news,
or research that does incredibly well on Facebook and can be applied to all
businesses.
So instead of trying to swim against the raging river that is people’s attention,
remember the advice of Eugene Schwartz, one of the greatest advertising
minds to ever live. He said, ‘This is the copywriter’s task, not to create mass
desire, but to channel and direct it’. In this instance, we’re talking about
channelling people’s desire to engage with content that looks like news.
Remember, your ad has one job and that’s to get people to click. In order to
do that it should look like breaking news or an exclusive article, because we
know that will compel people to click on your ad, read it, and engage.
The ad is the tip of the spear, and it’s not to be confused with trying to do the
job of any of the other steps in your funnel. We’re not trying to get people’s
contact details. We’re not trying to get people to buy services or call directly
off the ad. We’re not even trying to get the viewer to know right off the bat
who we are or what we’re selling! That will come quickly – but it’s not the
first thing we present to them.
Let’s not swim against that raging river of attention. Instead, let’s just swim
along with it and channel that desire to engage in that kind of content.
We’ve discussed what drives a click, and that’s curiosity, intrigue, shock, or
direct benefit that a person stands to get from clicking on the ad. That’s the
big promise we’re going to offer in our ads.
So, to summarise, what we’re looking at is using these primal desires and
combining them with the breaking news hook, and that is the winning
formula.
Remember, this isn’t some kind of theory. I haven’t just looked at this and
thought, ‘oh that’s cool, let me look at what the most shared content is’ and
then sat down in a dark room and dreamed up an esoteric theory about how
the world works. No. I’ve spent millions upon millions of dollars inside
Facebook on their ad platform in Ad Spend. This is coming from inside the
trenches, on the front lines, and testing it with my own money, to see what’s
working and what’s not.
This is just an example of one of the ads I run that have generated millions of
dollars. As you can see, it looks like a news piece: ‘How I Went from $0
Cold Calling from a Rented Bedroom to $833,000 Per Month in Four Years’.
There’s nothing crazy and I’m not trying to sell anything. It looks like a
feature you might find in Forbes or Inc Magazine. There’s just a picture of
me standing in front of a desk and that’s about it. So, let’s get to work on this.
Ad Copy Tips
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel or try to be a world -class copywriter.
I’m giving you a model and a proven system that I already know works. You
can just swipe it and deploy it in your own business, and watch those leads
start coming in.
Follow the attention. Where are all the eyeballs right now? What content are
people actually paying to read and engage with?
AARP Magazine is the number one selling magazine in the world by a
country mile. 23,428,878 people read AARP Magazine every two weeks,
which is almost 50 million people per month. You’ve seen it at the checkout
counters at supermarkets, where there’s a million and one things going on.
The writers at AARP know they have three seconds to grab that prospect by
the jugular, get the attention of a busy parent at the supermarket checkout
aisle when their kids are screaming at them and pulling on their pants and
saying, ‘Hey can I have this? Can I have that?’ While the store clerk is
talking to them, and the store is full of people, and there’s people behind
them, and trollies at their back, and there’s a whole lot of things going on
right now. These AARP guys have three seconds to grab that person with all
this chaos taking place, with copy that’s compelling enough to get them to
pick it up, throw it on that checkout, and go ahead and buy it. That is no easy
task.
How do they do that? Well, with killer headlines, and bullet copy, and
fascination copy that’s just burning with intrigue. ‘Six Bad Habits That Are
Really Healthy’. What are they and why are there six? What are those six
things? I really want to know!
Another one, ‘Oh No, My Aching Back. Five Causes of Pain That Will
Surprise You’. If you have back pain, which a lot of people do, what are the
five causes? They’re going to be surprising to me, so I can’t already know
them. Again, they’re luring me in. It’s nothing too crazy, but it is intriguing.
Is it a heart attack? Read this and be sure!
All they want you to do is pick up that magazine. They’ve got that bait on
their hook and they’re reeling you in. Here’s one that I love: ‘Live to 100, We
Found the Secret Formula in a Remote Village’. Naturally, you want to know
what that is, we all want to live longer, right? And there’s a secret formula
that was found in a remote village…
This isn’t some cutesy copy they think might work well. This is something
that’s working to get 50 million people reading their magazines every month.
I realise these are examples from a mass-market magazine, but this is where
you’ll find the highest paid copywriters. This is where you look to see what’s
getting people – millions of people – to buy content. We already know this
interest translates to the online environment with news articles and breaking
news getting the most shares and engagement. We simply want to model
what’s already working out there in the market.
Another great way to find popular content types is to go to BuzzSumo and
type in the topic you’re interested in. You might be a consultant helping
financial planners generate leads using social media. Look at what’s been the
most shared content in that category, or that keyword you’re focusing on. For
example, looking at the keyword ‘financial planner’ I see that ‘The Best
Piece of Money Advice in Your 30s from a Financial Planner’ had 3,700
shares, and it’s the second most shared content for financial planners.
Or this one: ‘After 10 Years as a Financial Planner I’ve Realized Almost
Everyone Gets the Same Thing Wrong About Money’. Naturally, I want to
know what that is. What is that thing? It’s from a financial planner that’s
been doing this for 10 years, and I really want to know what that is.
You are beginning to see what’s going on here. What’s going to grab that
busy person scrolling through Facebook by the scruff of their neck and pull
them into your ads? It is an incredibly busy world out there. That’s why
breaking or shocking news articles are the kinds of things that stop people in
their tracks and demands their attention.
Here’s one of my ads that appears as news: ‘Digital Marketing Expert Breaks
His Silence. You’ll Never Understand Just How Wrong Advertising
Agencies Have It, Until You Read This Shocking Expose By Australia’s Top
Digital Marketing Mogul and Agency Owner of Australia’s Fastest Growing
Digital Marketing Agency’.
It looks like news, and it’s not misleading because it is news. These are all
real things I’m talking about here! I’m lifting the hood on all these things that
advertising agencies don’t typically want you to know.
Here’s another ad that’s going for the same breaking news angle. This one’s
for Secret Facebook Ad Targeting Revealed. We’ve got a picture of Mark
Zuckerberg. It appears to look like news, and on the back of this you click it,
and it takes you to our High-Value-Content Offer. However, what you can
see here in the ad is that it’s just staying true to exactly the job of that ad,
which is to get clicked. I’m not trying to get people to opt in or to do
anything right now. All I want them to do is click this ad. I’m just
channelling their desire to know what the news is and bringing them through
to the next stage in that simple four-step funnel.
Let’s look at another example. It’s for an institute that teaches people to
become Pilates instructors. Let’s look at some of the elements of the ad.
First of all, the thing that gets your attention is this image of people doing
Pilates on a mat. Then there’s a massive logo and Pilates Mat Cost R6600 Fit
Pro, so you see immediately this is an ad. Then there’s a date and all the ad
copy. They’re asking us to email them for more information right on the ad.
They’re already showing me that their intention is to sell something.
This is definitely the wrong way to do it. This doesn’t look like news, nor
does it have any components that tap into a desire. Let’s have a look at a
better way.
Here’s what we did for a client. This looks like a news article: ‘Find out how
everyday Aussies are breaking the shackles of their 9-to-5 desk jobs, and
trading in their corporate attire for comfy activewear, and earning a lucrative
paycheck doing so…’ It’s very newsy. It’s intriguing – so what are all these
Aussies doing? There’s an article here and the image looks like one that
would be shared on a news website.
The headline grabs you with ‘Find out’ and ‘breaking the shackles of 9-to-5’,
because who doesn’t want to know how to do that? Next, ‘This shocking new
report reveals how thousands of everyday Australians are quitting their jobs
and flocking to become highly paid Pilates instructors’. Again, you can see
that it looks like an article. There are no prices, no dates, no mention of the
business name or anything like that.
Here’s another example. How to secure your first profitable investment
property in just 60-days. Breaking news, attention first-time property
investors. Again, it looks like a news article. There are a lot of things going
on here and it really doesn’t look like we’re trying to sell property
>
investment. We’re just trying to get people to click into the contents.
This is for a weight-loss person. ‘Breaking news, exactly how I lost 77kgs,
and how you can too’. A picture of the guy eating ice cream who’s saying
he’s lost 77kgs. Wow. What is this? Did you diet? This makes me want to get
involved and click through.
Or this is another one, from direct response marketing giant Stansberry
Research. Again, it looks like a news article or an opinion piece. ‘Here’s how
millennials will get back at America’s baby boomers. Check out this radical
plan backed by several Ivy League economists’. Then there are pictures of
some homeless people. ‘Expert says this will be a national nightmare. The
next big bankruptcy in America will be unlike anything we’ve seen in more
than 50 years’. The whole ad is geared at getting me to click and read more
about what’s going on. That’s going to take them to a content piece, and
there’ll be an offer on the backend. These guys are seasoned marketers, they
know what they’re doing.
Another one here by The Motley Fool Australia. ‘Japanese Billionaire’s
Prediction Will Give You Goosebumps’. All the copy is geared around
intrigue.
Anatomy Of A High-Converting
Facebook Ad
Now let’s look at the anatomy of a Facebook ad so that when you’re writing
yours you know the different elements.
The Intro Text
This is the very first thing the scroller will see. This is why you go straight in
with the news angle or call out your audience at the very top, whether it’s
‘Attention business owners’, or ‘Attention mothers over the age of 25’, or
whatever it might be.
Test different lengths of copy in here. We do very long form copy, and then
we do short-form copy. In most instances longer-form copy will do the best
job but it’s good to test everything.
The Ad Image
The ad image is a really important element and it’s where I see most people
getting it wrong. They’re using glossy images with buttons to try to get
attention. But the thing is, Facebook is a native advertising platform,