Ah, Facebook — everyone’s favorite place to share heartwarming photos of their kids and pets, commemorate life milestones and occasionally argue politics with some guy who lived across the street from your parents in 1996. With more than 2.42 billion monthly active users, according to Statista, it’s one of the most popular places to spend (or waste) time online. For B2C brands, it’s a veritable cash cow.
But does Facebook hold any value for B2B marketers? After all, who cares about seeing work-related products and services while scrolling through their college lab partner’s vacation pics?
As it turns out, a lot more than you might expect.
Seventy-four percent of people say they use Facebook for professional purposes, according to HubSpot. And business decision-makers (BDMs) are two times more likely to be a daily active user than non-BDMs, according to data shared by Facebook.
Here’s why Facebook is one of the best B2B demand generation platforms, real results from Kuno clients and a few tips for getting the most from your B2B Facebook campaigns.
If you’ve avoided delving deeper into Facebook advertising because you feel your marketing budget is better spent elsewhere, you’re not alone. The platform launched in 2004 as a connection tool for college students and eventually morphed into a global network for communicating with family and friends. Not exactly a paragon of B2B activity — or so it would seem.
But today, Facebook has integrated a variety of professional-focused features and products, such as Facebook Jobs and Facebook Business Tools. There are also several hundred thousand Facebook Groups, many of which cater to professional niches and explore B2B topics. In other words, BDMs have plenty of reasons to log into Facebook for work-related activities.
Furthermore, people want to see advertisements for products and services that are relevant to their needs and will help them solve specific challenges. Whether the offering is for their personal or professional life doesn’t really matter. Reaching the right people in the right place and at the time is what’s most critical to successful B2B demand generation, and that’s precisely what Facebook offers.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Check out these results from real Kuno clients who invested in Facebook B2B demand generation:
Total campaign spend: $4,931
Clicks: 504
Purchases: 170
Cost per purchase: $29
Conversion rate: 33% (the B2B industry average is 10%)
ROI: $63,506
Total campaign spend: $3,000
Clicks: 1,515
Conversions (downloads): 185
New contacts: 103
Cost per conversion: $16
Conversion rate: 12% (the healthcare industry average is 11%)
When properly designed and optimized, Facebook campaigns can help B2B organizations generate significant ROI and generate tons of high-quality leads. That said, if your campaigns aren’t run well, you also run the risk of losing money and failing to engage the right audiences.
Here are three B2B demand gen best practices to keep in mind when using Facebook:
Facebook is huge. That means there’s ample opportunity — but there’s also plenty of competition. To stand out from the many other B2B and B2C companies vying for BDM attention, it’s critical you leverage aesthetically pleasing imagery and captivating copy.
Facebook Ads offers robust targeting opportunities, including demographics, companies and job titles, behaviors, interests and more. You can upload lists of existing contacts to create lookalike audiences of your ideal customers. And with retargeting, you can get your message directly in front of people who have interacted with your website.
To make sure you’re reaching the right people, it’s crucial you use these features to the fullest. At the same time, though, make sure you’re not getting so granular you limit your audience. With a little practice and a lot of optimizing, you’ll learn how to strike the perfect balance.
Demand generation efforts require a significant amount of time and expertise, especially when it comes to building, monitoring and optimizing campaigns. If you don’t have the necessary talent in-house (or you can’t afford to dedicate a team member to this effort), you’ll likely see faster and better results by outsourcing to an agency that specializes in B2B demand generation.
Although social media is one of the best spaces to engage B2B buyers, many B2B marketers are (understandably) gun-shy about launching a campaign on Facebook. However, with the right demand generation strategy, creative, copy and targeting know-how, you can reach the right decision-makers and foster plenty of interest for your product or service.
