One of the most common marketing challenges that businesses face is to make the right decisions, at the right time. This is because marketers are often bombarded with data, but seldom have time to analyze and make decisions based on it. Fortunately, technology enables us to streamline almost every part of marketing through marketing automation.
What is marketing automation? It is the use of software to automate repetitive, redundant marketing work such as social media posting, regular graphic design, and ad campaigns. This is done not just for efficiency, but also to provide a more personalized experience for customers. A study from Instapage shows that 3 out of 4 marketers make use of at least one marketing automation tool to help with their day-to-day tasks.
In this blog post, we break down the strategies that startups and small businesses can use to get started with Facebook marketing automation.
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Use customizable templates for content creation
As a business, your success on social media is entirely dependent on the content that you publish. However, producing high-performing, engaging content can be quite challenging for small businesses.
This is where customizable templates can help you out and make the process of content creation easier and simpler for you.
Benefits of using customizable templates
Before we dive into how you can make use of customizable templates, let’s look at how they can add value to your business:
- No design skills needed: If you don’t have extensive experience as a designer, you know how difficult it can be to design social media posts from scratch. When you use templates, however, the design is already there and you just need to customize it as per your needs with a few simple clicks.
- Quicker turnaround time: With customizable templates, you no longer have to put in long hours to make a design from scratch, or get it made from a designer. All you need to do is pick out a template, customize it with your content, and you are good to go in a matter of minutes.
- Adhere to design guidelines: Facebook has guidelines for the size and type of graphics that you can use (e.g. in cover images and posts). Altering your own design to meet these guidelines can be a time-consuming task but with templates, you can just choose a template that was made for Facebook.
- Consistent brand image: If you want to ensure that you use consistent design language across all marketing material then templates are a great way to do it. You can create predefined templates with the color, fonts, and backgrounds that your team can simply add content to. This will help ensure that each time you prepare a new post, it uses the same core design elements as other posts.
How to use customizable templates for Facebook?
There are tons of graphic design tools out there but only a few of them are suitable for small businesses in terms of cost, ease of use, and value. For this reason, we recommend using PosterMyWall because of its affordable pricing, intuitive interface, and massive library of customizable templates for all sorts of marketing needs.
Here is how you can use PosterMyWall for simplifying content creation for Facebook:
- Choose a template from the wide range of customizable Facebook marketing templates available on the platform.
- Click on ‘Customize This Design’ to start editing the template that you picked.
- Use the design tool to start customizing the template. You can edit the content, make changes to the layout, or add your own design elements if you like.
- Once done, click on ‘Publish’ on the top menu and select ‘Social Media’ to directly publish the image to Facebook (you need to be an administrator of a public Facebook page or group to make use of this feature). Alternatively, you can ‘Download’ the design if you wish to use it offline or upload it to social media.
Make use of Facebook Automated Ads
Facebook Automated Ads simplify the process of ad creation by making use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create personalized ads for you.
Instead of having to go through the long and tedious process of creating regular ads, Automated Ads offer you the most relevant customizations for your business and make ad creation as easy as possible. When compared to regular ads that typically consist of 11 different options, Automated Ads only offer 3 personalized options that Facebook recommends.
For startups and small businesses, Automated Ads are recommended because they make the entire process of creating and personalizing ads much more efficient, especially if you have little to no experience with Facebook ads. With Automated Ads, it is like you have a professional advertiser recommending to you the best next steps to take so you can create the best possible campaign to meet your goals.
Here are the different ways Automated Ads can help your business:
- Campaign tracking: When you create Automated Ads, Facebook provides regular updates on how your ads are performing and if you can take any steps to improve them further. For example, Facebook may recommend that you can change an image or the content of an ad to generate better results.
- A/B testing: You can create up to 6 different versions of your ad, each with different call-to-actions and content for testing. Once you run the ad, you can easily see which version is performing the best so you can focus all your energy on it. This is great for when you are unsure about the ad copy or the call-to-action that you need to use for maximum conversions.
- Personalized budget and audience suggestions: One of the most difficult choices when running an ad is to choose the right budget and audience for an ad. This is made easier with Automated Ads since Facebook will recommend the budget and audience for you that has the maximum chances of generating results. In some cases, Facebook may even offer an automated audience option that will automatically create and improve the ad audience for you.
All in all, Automated Ads are the sweet spot between regular ads and boosted ads that give you enough control to define the direction and outcome of your ad, but also guide you to the best possible outcome at the same time.
For a detailed guide on how to set up and configure Facebook Automated Ads, check out this official guide from Facebook.
Set up social media automation
There are tons of things that a marketer has to do on Facebook that can be automated. This includes publishing posts, maintaining and following a posting calendar, analyzing social data, and responding to customer queries.
Social media automation is all about optimizing social interactions and marketing efforts through the use of tools. The benefit is that you can save the time and resources that are allocated to performing these repetitive and tedious tasks on Facebook.
Additionally, with automation, you can best utilize the data at hand to make decisions that lead to more effective marketing campaigns. For example, by analyzing the data available, you can find out the best time of day to publish your content so that you get maximum engagement from your target audience.
What can you use social media automation for?
Here are four different areas where social media automation can help your business:
- Publishing posts at the right time: You can maximize your reach by posting at times when your audience is the most active on social media. Automation tools such as Buffer will recommend the best time to post so you can schedule your content accordingly.
- Maintaining a regular queue of posts: Small businesses seldom have a dedicated social media team that can handle publishing posts regularly. This makes it difficult for marketers who already have multiple responsibilities. Social media automation helps with this by letting you upload a content calendar that will automatically publish posts on the designated days and times. You can do this week ahead of time to save up your effort of having to publish each post individually.
- Analyzing social data: Most automation tools come with key insights and metrics such as engagement levels, reach, impressions, and conversions in real-time. With all this data coming in a structured, consistent format, marketers can easily make decisions on how to improve their Facebook marketing strategy.
- Automated replies to customers: You can make use of a chatbot to automate some or all of your direct engagement with customers on Facebook. This helps you improve customer service greatly since automated replies are instant and, in most cases, (particularly when customers need more information), a chatbot can address their questions fully to save you time.
Start making Facebook marketing easier today
Making your brand stand out in today’s social landscape is an uphill battle. This becomes even more challenging when you are doing everything with a small team that is already stretched. Fortunately, there are some great ways you can offload some of your work and automate Facebook marketing such as using customizable templates for content creation, using Automated Ads, and automating content publishing and customer support.
So, what are you waiting for? Start automating today and save up on time and effort while ensuring better returns on your marketing efforts.
Author’s bio:
Rimsha Imran
I am a writer in the marketing department at PosterMyWall. I write blog posts related to lifestyle, marketing, design, travel, and business. I discovered my love for writing in 2014 and haven’t stopped since. In my spare time, I like to draw illustrations, read, travel, swim, and spend quality time with my cat.
Image Credit: www.freepik.com