A Conversation with a Millionaire
I caught up with a UK based Facebook marketer yesterday on Facebook Messenger. He’s always been a great guy and full of useful information, having made his millions using Facebook ads to sell his products online. It’s a great business model and by throwing myself and SMR Social into their community we learned a lot about some of the more advanced Facebook advertising techniques that no one else was ever using. To this day we still use Facebook ads (and other platforms now) to sell our own products, but we don’t do it to make money, we do it to keep up with the latest techniques and test out ideas we have. It’s incredible how much you can learn from testing things out yourself, rather than just following the basics.
He’s really struggling now
The millionaire in question has actually been on a rather long break from Facebook marketing, and rightly so. A few weeks he announced to the community that he was going to jump back in and give his online business one last push before leaving it out there to make him money while he’s retired. I was really happy to see him come back, because he’s always so open about what he’s doing and we learn a lot just by reading his posts in the community we’re in. So I thought I’d drop him a message yesterday to see how it’s going so far…
Partnership
He started a partnership with someone who he used to work with in the early days of his business. The idea was that ‘millionaire’ would come up with the products, the new partner would run the Facebook ads. Now this new partner is very active on the community groups and is often posting advice to people. We’ve always been skeptical of his advise and we’re glad we were! He couldn’t get a sale. ‘Millionaire’ has been emailing his new products to his email lists and getting great results, while partner had been running Facebook ads and not getting any sales. It just goes to show, don’t always believe the advice you’re given by people in the communities you’re in…make sure they’re actually doing it themselves before you listen to them. So straight away ‘millionaire was disappointed.’
Cold Traffic
When you don’t have email lists and look a like audiences to work with, starting with Facebook advertising can be tough and can take a lot of testing. You’re effectively trying to get people who’ve never heard of you to buy your products. Well, that’s if you go straight into direct adverts…which is where we believe 80% of people are going wrong. Back in the early days of Facebook marketing you could come up with a great product, put an ad on Facebook for it and it would work amazingly. It just isn’t like that anymore. ‘Millionaire’ is trying to push his products on Facebook without building up brand awareness, trust and a good reputation. He has all the assets to do that with his previous customers and huge lists and look a like audiences, but doesn’t have the patience to build his brand instead of going for the quick sales.
Make no Mistake
It’s a lesson to be learned for everyone. Make no mistake, this guy knows what he’s doing when it comes to Facebook ads and if anyone’s going to be able to get the quick sales it’s him. It just points out how things have changed and Facebook ads aren’t a get rich quick model anymore, it’s all about building up your brand and reputation so that you can sell your products and services to ‘warm’ traffic instead of cold traffic.
