Facebook ads are a great way to get leads and appointments. That is if you do them correctly. Unfortunately, Facebook ads can be a huge waste of time and money if you don’t know what works or how to adapt. Here is a list of dos and don'ts we try to follow to achieve leads and appointments for a low cost via Facebook ads:

DOs -

1. Picture! This is everything. It doesn’t matter what your copy says if no one is stopping their scrolling because of your picture. Make it eye-catching and attention grabbing.

2. Make it relatable. Ask yourself “Who is my target audience? What do they want? What do they like? How can I give it to them?” People will continue scrolling if the ad isn’t relevant to their interests and desires.

3. Clear next steps. Once your audience knows how they will be benefitted by your offering, be clear about what next steps are. They want to know if it’s as simple as clicking the link to learn more, no one should be clicking on a link that they don’t know. 

4. Make it about them. It is important for you to present yourself as a trustworthy and knowledgeable source but it’s also not about you. Start off with something they desire to hook them before going into how you play into it.

5. Authenticity. No one is perfect, right? So why try to market yourself that way when we all know it's phony. When recording a video ad, it’s okay to move around, mess up the script, just be natural. These videos perform better than ‘perfect’ ones.

6. Call outs. You know who your target audience is so name them. No more ‘people want this’. Who are those people? Instead address them directly like ‘retirees want this’ so that when your target audience sees it they automatically know that they should be interested in what the ad is. 

7. Big promise. Think about what makes you stop at an ad. It’s something big, right? A store is having a 30% off sale or something is free with purchase. The same applies to facebook ads for advisors. If you can get them 10 appointments a month, say that directly and they will stop (just don’t lie about it).

8. Buzzwords. There are certain phrases or words that catch people's attention more than others. For example, sale makes people stop scrolling. If you know your industry's buzzword, use it in an ad! It’s attention grabbing and will likely increase your results.

DONTs -

1. Negative emotion. While an ad that makes someone mad, afraid, etcetera is attention grabbing, it’s not the attention you want. Your business is now associated with those negative emotions and who wants to work with someone who makes them mad?

2. Lingo or jargon. You could have a great ad that doesn’t perform simply because of the wording. Not everyone knows financial advisor lingo or jargon and will keep scrolling since they don’t understand the ad.

3. Vague button. We recommend against “Sign up” buttons, it is unlikely that an ad has enough information for someone on facebook to be willing to sign up then and there. What are they signing up for? No one will be clicking a button without knowing that answer.

4. Focus on you. It’s great that you are nationally recognized or earning millions of dollars a month but your prospects don’t care. They want to do that and only care if you are telling them how to do that. Instead of “I manage +$22 million” say “You can manage +$22 million and here's how”.

5. Overproduction. Facebook videos are not the same caliber as T.V. commercials so you definitely don’t need to prepare a set or a script or perfect lighting. In fact, videos that do these things and seem overly rehearsed or directed tend to perform worse. 

6. Stock photos. Professional photos on the internet look nice, save money, and are time savers. We all want to use them. But, they unfortunately don’t provide as good of results as a picture you were to take yourself that isn’t perfect or maybe a little boring. Authenticity and originality are key for scroll-stopping pictures.

7. Forms on Facebook. They’re easy, convenient, and one click which seem like all positive attributes, but not necessarily. There is such a thing as too easy. You don’t know anything about this person who just booked an appointment or signed up for your offering and they don’t really know you or what they signed up for. We recommend taking them to a landing page instead.

8. Contradictory offers. Sometimes we just want everyone possible to click on our ads so we offer an e-book and a complimentary appointment which is great, but not at the same time. This can be so confusing for people, who really knows which they are signing up for. Maybe they want the book but not an appointment and get disappointed. Keep it simple and one track.

Facebook ads are a great marketing tool. We highly recommend utilizing this in your own practice and hope these dos and don'ts help you be successful with Facebook ads. If you want more information about this watch our video (and see example ads) here!