Are you a local business targeting a very specific subset of the people in your area? Wondering if Facebook Ads can help you drive new business?

The answer is: Yes.

But it’s going to take a little work.

Below we’ve put together a step-by-step guide for how to go about targeting AND converting a small audience using Facebook ads.

Step 1: Put Together a Newsfeed Ad That Links to Your Website

The first thing you want to do is create Facebook ads that will show up in Facebook’s Newsfeed since this prime ad real estate on the social network.

Ads that show up in the right siderail can be easily ignored or even hidden if a viewer is using ad blocking software. However, all Facebook users look through their Newsfeed since this is where they find updates from their friends and brands they Like.

You won’t be able to show up in a person’s Newsfeed if they don’t Like your business page UNLESS you run a Newsfeed ad.

So, what is a Newsfeed ad?

It’s a regular Facebook post that gets paid views by putting ad dollars behind it. You can turn one of your already posted updates into a Newsfeed ad or you can create a unpublished post and turn it into a Newsfeed ad.

Today I’m just going to show you how to turn an already published post into a Newsfeed ad.

First, put together a promotional post for your Facebook Page that talks about your product or service. Make it an image post since it will be more eye-catching than a link or regular text post.

In the copy you post with the picture clearly describe your product, its benefits to a customer and include a link to the product page on your website. Do this all in as little copy as possible.

How little? Try for two short sentences.

Here’s an example from the Washington Post:

They include an image of the mobile app, talk about the benefit of their product (read online-exclusive stories and blogs) and include a link to their product page where visitors can make a purchase.

Once you publish your post to your Facebook Page log into your AdEspresso account or Facebook’s Power Editor and create a new ad based on a Page Post:

Select the Post you want to turn into an ad and then under Placement select Newsfeed (Desktop Only).

I usually suggest skipping placement in the mobile newsfeed when you’re trying to convert visitors into a sale because most people don’t have very good mobile e-commerce websites. If you do – go ahead and select Newsfeed (Desktop and Mobile).

Then select your targeting parameters (location, age, gender, etc.) and click the Upload button to active the ad.

It will go through a short approval process and then, as long as it passes, your post will be turned into a Newsfeed ad!

This ad will target the people in your small audience and prompt them to click and make a purchase from your website.

Step 2: Put Together a Like Campaign to Grow Your Facebook Audience

Next you’ll want to put together a Facebook ad campaign to grow the number of people who Like your Facebook Page that also fit your target audience.

You can create this type of Facebook ad campaign in your normal ad dashboard or in your AdEspresso.

You want to run this kind of campaign because when people Like your page you have the ability to post messages and stay top-of-mind with them every day.

For the Facebook Like campaign you’ll want to keep costs down so you’ll run the ads in the right siderail.

As mentioned before, ads in the right siderail have less prominent real estate but they still work well for Like campaigns in my experience.

When creating your Facebook Like campaign you should clearly state how the viewer will benefit from Liking your page. It should also include a call-to-action to Like the page.

Here are a few examples of Facebook ads aimed at getting people to Like your page:

You can (and should) a/b test different versions of each Facebook ad in these campaigns to decrease your Cost Per Like metric and increase your audience size.

Since your target audience is small don’t expect huge gains in your number of Likes overnight. This will be a slow and steady process … and depending on how small your target audience is, you may reach saturation quickly.

You’ll know you’ve reached saturation when you see a high ad frequency (check your ad dashboard for this metric) and a drop off in the number of new people who are Liking your page.

Step 3: Publish Engaging Content on Your Facebook Page

Once your Facebook ads are running and you’re driving more visitors to your website (via the Newsfeed ads) and increasing the Likes on your Page (via the right siderail ads) you MUST publish engaging content on your page.

Every day.

Maybe even multiple times per day (try it and see how your engagement is).

Your content should be a mix of fun content (funny photos, inspirational pictures, funny stuff that happens to your staff, etc.), educational content (stuff related to your industry) and promotional content (linking to your product pages).

I personally like to do at least three posts per week that are purely promotional. These promo posts will occur on days that I also post fun or educational content.

So a usual schedule for me is 5 fun/educational posts per week (Mon-Fri) and 3 promotional posts per week (Mon-Fri).

This formula seems to work for the majority of my clients, though you should experiment and see what works best for you.

Step 4: Promote Your Best Promotional Content

After posting promotional type content you’ll want to make sure it is seen by as many people as possible.

In order to increase the number of eyeballs that see your promos you should Promote them.

You can do this directly on your Facebook page. Simply click the “promote” or “boost” button under each post, set your budget and voila – your post will be shown to many people!

And there you have it  – the four steps for targeting and converting a small audience on Facebook using ads!

Do you have any questions about anything in this post? If so, please leave a comment or tweet to us @AdEspresso and our team will do our best to answer your questions. If you’re ready to start optimizing your Facebook ads please sign up for our FREE beta.