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Facebook ads are the entrance into your funnel, right? Meaning, they’re not the whole strategy start to finish.
On today’s episode, I’m taking you through a case study in failed marketing (i.e. the silo effect that happens when one company runs ads and another writes the copy.. and nobody knows the strategy).
I’m talking about…
- Why ‘clicks’ are meaningless
- How to know your ads are really working (or not)
- Why nearly 80% of our partners come to us for help
This is what you need to know before you begin running ads (or, set yourself up for failure – you choose). Tune into this quick episode for a lesson in strategy, and then share your takeaways on IG + tag @emilyhirsh for a shoutout!
Key Points:
[2:26] Clicks on the ad don’t matter if you don’t have THIS in place
[4:27] What you need to know first, before you begin ads
[5:45] Why your Facebook ads aren’t ‘working’
[7:35] The #1 reason we’re no longer an agency!
[9:20] A case study in FAILURE
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Episode Transcripts:
I’m Emily Hirsh, and this is The Hirsh Marketing Underground Podcast. Attention innovators, influencers, creators, and game changing entrepreneurs. Your internet domination begins right here. We are the powerhouse marketers that you’ve been looking for. You’re already making waves in your industry, and we’re here to help amplify those waves of change by creating a connection that cuts through the noise. We take everything you’ve built inside your zone of genius and find its audience.
With killer strategy and laser eye for impact, we launch multimillion dollar campaigns and sky rocket your reach online. And now, we are doing the unheard of. We’re unveiling what we’ve learned, taking you behind the scenes with the Hirsh Marketing Team and giving away the secrets to our client’s success. Stay tuned for top converting strategy, ROI reports, and insider knowledge that you won’t find anywhere else. You’re changing the world and we are the team to help.
In today’s episode we’re going to be talking about why marketing isn’t just about the Facebook ads, and how important the big picture is, because the Facebook piece doesn’t matter if you don’t have the funnel in place. And so, this was inspired from a conversation I had with one of my Dream 100 potential clients. They booked in their call for our Dream 100 package that we sent out, and I was super intrigued by what they shared with me, which was, that for the last, I think couple of years, at least last year, they’ve basically had two different companies supporting them with their marketing.
They have one company who supports them with their Infusionsoft, and funnels, and just like funnel strategy, and building the pages. And then, they have another company who does the Facebook ads. She came to me, and she’s like, “Honestly, I really feel like they’re just kind of siloed, and then they just point fingers at each other.” Of like, “Hey we need this,” or, “We need this.” Or, “We don’t have this,” or, “We don’t have this, and that’s why it’s not working.”
I thought that was really interesting because I’ve run into this a lot, where it’s like, a Facebook ads team doesn’t do the ad copy, and then, so they blame it, that it’s the ad copy, right, “That’s not working.” And, to me it’s like, well just do the ad copy then, have the experts do the ad copy, because it’s such a crucial part of the Facebook ads. Well, I see funnels as the same thing. You don’t have to be able to have the same person building your funnels, but you have to have the funnel strategy tied into the Facebook ads or it’s pointless, because it matters so much.
And so, when she came to this call she’s like, “Here’s the stats that I get from this Facebook ad company. They tell me …” It was an agency. “They tell me my cost per impression, how many people I’ve reached, and my clicks.” And like, I don’t even know if they were telling her conversions when it should’ve been conversions, which a big red flag to me, which is a whole other story. But she asked me, “What do you think of these stats?” And I said, “I can’t even tell you what I think. I could give you some speculations, but I don’t know, because I don’t know the funnel piece. Like, reach of the ad, and clicks on the ad. Like, none of that really matters to me if it’s not converting.”
And so, I recognized this a very long time ago, and this is why we are no longer, Hirsh Marketing is not a marketing agency anymore. We are a marketing management company, and it’s because I don’t want to put myself in the box of, we only Facebook and Instagram ads, because I think it is so crucial that you not only offer those, you offer those pieces together, but you have the big picture of marketing, entire sales funnel strategy. At least the strategy, it doesn’t have to be the implementation, although we do do that. But, it doesn’t have to be the implementation, it has to at least be the strategy and the understanding, and so that has to be watched along with the Facebook ads or there will be a massive gap.
There will be a total gap, because the Facebook ad is the entrance for a cold lead, usually to start to get to know you. But then, what happens after that, and the stats after that, matter both on, is the funnel working? But also, is the messaging in my Facebook ad, and the targeting of my Facebook ad attracting the right person? And so for me, before we even start ads, phase one in The Hirsh Process, step one is strategize. Strategize, and a part of that phase, if you haven’t listened to the first couple episodes of the podcast, go back and listen to The Hirsh Process. But, a part of that phase is understanding, “Do I have a very deep understanding of my ideal customer or client? What keeps them up at night? ..and the messaging, and pretty much the branding, before I start ads?”
And so, if an ad agency is not doing that piece, they’re already starting at a disadvantage, at a possible, like, setting you up for failure, which is why we are not an agency. Because, I do that first. And on a strategy call is my director of strategy and my creative director. Half of the call is about messaging, because I can tell you, I mean, I’m taking a guess, but I would say 75% to 80% of people that come to us, they have to really hone in on their messaging for the ad before they’re ready for the ads, right? And agencies don’t do that, they don’t see that as their job.
Their job is, come to me, you already have your messaging, your branding, your problems, your client, your funnel in place, and all we do is drive traffic to that, to scale that. Now, it’s fine if that’s all you need, but most people need more than that. So from that, so first you start with the messaging. You have to understand that before you can even go and make the Facebook ads. You have to understand who it is you’re trying to attract into the funnel, what that funnel is, what success is with that funnel. Like, how many people do I need to get in, how much money do I need to spend, and then you have to know the stats.
So, what happens when someone gets to that landing page, are they converting? What happens when someone signs up to the webinar, are they showing up? What happens when somebody watches that webinar, are they buying? What happens when they go through the webinar, watch the webinar, don’t buy, are they getting emails? Are they converting on those emails? Are those emails opening? Are those emails being clicked? What happens after the initial sales? Let’s say it’s a three or four day sale, what happens then?
Are they getting follow-up emails? Like, all of those things matter in the Facebook ads, because if those things are not in place you may as well not run Facebook ads. And not only if they’re not in place, if they’re not converting you may as well not run Facebook ads. And, to say that the Facebook ads are working fine but the funnel is broken is also wrong, because I can tell you that there has been times where we knew the funnel was okay, and that it was the traffic, and the messaging on the actual ad itself that we had to hone in on and test in order to improve the funnel.
I feel like it’s a massive red flag if a marketing team, or if you’re doing it yourself, you’re running ads, and you’re not tracking on a weekly basis, every step of that funnel. Not just tracking it, but analyzing it for the holes. Because, this is where people feel like, “Well, I’m running Facebook ads, and I don’t know if they’re working.” Or, “I’m running Facebook ads and they’re not working, and I don’t know what the problem is.” This is because of a lack of understanding of the entire big picture.
Marketing is not just about the Facebook ads, and that’s why I made the decision to say we’re not an agency anymore, because I just felt like, first of all I didn’t want to be in that box of another agency, another, you know, we don’t just drive traffic to Facebook, because way too many people go in and seek that help, and think, “If I can just turn on Facebook ads this will solve my problems,” or, “This’ll get me the traffic I need,” and it’s just not the case.
Because, if you don’t have the entire marketing strategy in place, and you understand all its stats, and if you don’t have the stats and you understand the stats you’re shooting for, and if you don’t hit them you know what you have to do to change that. If you don’t have that you’re starting out by just setting yourself up for failure. It’s amazing to me how many people honestly do this, like, that is their first experience with the Facebook ads, and that is why I am on a mission to change that.
I’m on a mission to say it is possible to have a team, and have people out there, where they understand the whole big picture, and they take that into consideration, just like you would if you had an in-house team. Just like you would if you had to manage all these pieces, which is, day to day tactical implementation of Facebook ads, combined with big picture sales funnel and marketing consistent strategy combined, like intertwined together, consistently, daily, and then creative, and branding, and messaging, and headlines, and copy, and images. All of those together are exactly what you need to have successful marketing campaigns, and ad agencies just don’t that.
Usually you have to get multiple companies, but then, if the other companies … This is what happened on my call. If the other company doesn’t know about the Facebook ads, and doesn’t know the traffic going to their pages that they’re building, that’s a huge gap. And, if the Facebook ad company isn’t consulting on what the marketing company should be doing, that’s a huge gap. In this case actually, one of the companies had way more experience with E-commerce, and I could see it. I could see it as soon as I saw it, I’m like, “They’re driving this to sales pages in a digital space. This should be going to a lead magnet.”
Clearly, this company is like, “Well, normally we do ads to Ecommerce, and so that’s going straight to the product.” And so, they are lacking that. I could see it immediately, that they were lacking that knowledge, which was really hurting this company. And it was also really making them frustrated, because they were feeling like they were this middle man trying to bring these two teams together, and sometimes it’s like an agency in your own team. But the key here is that whoever’s looking at the Facebook ads needs to also be looking at the funnels.
The funnels and the marketing don’t necessarily have to be understanding of every Facebook ad stat, but the Facebook ads are nothing without where they’re going, and the big picture strategy. So if you’re running video ads, what’s the strategy? And so, that’s partly what they’re doing. They’re like, “Oh, we’re getting reach.” And I’m like, “That means absolutely nothing if we don’t know what happens with the reach and the clicks.” So, super important, why marketing is not just about the ad, and definitely a misconception out there.
So, if you are looking for support with your Facebook ads you can go to HelpMyStrategy.com. And, not just Facebook ads, because we are not just a marketing agency, if you missed that announcement earlier on, about, I don’t know, about eight podcast episodes ago, six or eight, go back and listen to that. But we are not just a marketing agency, we are Hirsh Marketing, a marketing management company that does all of these things combined. And, we take on partners, we take on people who, we call our clients partners because we are so invested in their success. We are picky about who we take on, because we know if we say ‘yes’ that we can take you on, that we can get you the results that you need.
So, if you think that’s you, and you want to just apply, and check it out, you can go to HelpMyStrategy.com. If not, thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure that you are tying your Facebook ads with your funnels, and that whoever, even if it’s you, is running your Facebook ads, knows to do that. And you’re doing that so that you understand, ‘cause otherwise there’s, right up front, a huge gap. Thanks guys.
Thanks for listening to the Hirsh Marketing Underground Podcast. Go behind the scenes of multimillion dollar ad campaigns and strategies, dive deep into The Hirsh Process, and listen our most popular episodes over at HirshMarketingUnderground.com. If you loved this episode of the podcast, do me a favor, and head over to iTunes to subscribe and leave a review so we can reach more people and change more lives with this content. That’s all for now, and I’ll catch you next time.