How to Use the CBR Method to Build a Brand on Facebook
Facebook ads can be a fantastic tool to generate leads and sales. But I would argue that their most effective application is to build a brand on Facebook.
In this article, I walk you through the step by step process I used to build my brand with Facebook.
In fact, I have used this Facebook ads strategy to generate over 80,000 page likes and build a 12,000 person community outside of Facebook.
Why Bother Building Your Brand?
When I first started Lead Guru, I found it really difficult to attract new clients. (which is quite embarrassing, when you’re service is digital marketing!)
Because of the relative low cost of Facebook advertising, I knew that Facebook would be a great place for me to find new clients but I was approaching it the wrong way.
I tried directly advertising my services to complete strangers…
Which did not work.
I offered free consulting sessions in the hope that people would then use my services…
Which barely worked.
At the time, I didn’t know why my Facebook ad campaigns weren’t delivering results.
I knew the Facebook advertising platform well because I had run profitable Facebook ad campaigns at my previous job.
I also knew that if the digital marketers I followed used ads like mine, they would generate tons of clients.
And then it hit me.
The reason why those ads would work for the digital marketing “celebrities”, but didn’t work for me, is because they had a loyal following and I didn’t.
I consumed their content on a regular basis and so did thousands of other people.
That meant every time they promoted their products and services on Facebook, they had a queue of people that were ready and willing to buy.
And pay really high prices.
So I switched nearly all of my Facebook advertising efforts to building my brand.
Instead of looking to directly acquire new clients.
And that’s when everything started to change for my business.
The truth is…
If you can build a strong brand and a loyal following, everything else in your business will become so much easier.
And Facebook is the perfect platform to grow your brand.
Of course, you will need to invest some time and bit of money upfront.
But the potential rewards are enormous.
Since those early days, I’ve learnt how to use Facebook ads to build my brand and I have refined my strategy into a 3 step process.
I call this 3 step process the CBR method.
Step 1: Content
C stands for content. Creating epic content is step 1 in the CBR method.
Think about the people that are well known in your industry.
Most of them will have become well known by creating and promoting high quality content.
But here’s the thing…
Your brand will not automatically grow just because you’re creating content on a regular basis.
Mediocre content will not grow your brand, only epic content will.
Fortunately creating epic content is not as hard as you think.
Creating Epic Content
The first thing you need to do, is decide whether you are going to educate or entertain with your content.
This will depend on your business and the industry it is in.
For most service based businesses, it makes more sense to educate.
As a service provider, you know things that your target market would find very useful.
For most product based businesses on the other hand, it make more sense to entertain.
Just think of all the companies that have built their brands with entertaining TV ads.
You can do exactly the same with Facebook.
One of the best examples of epic entertaining videos I have seen is from Dollar Shave Club.
Check out their videos on YouTube and you’ll see how they use entertaining videos to sell their products really well.
Obviously, you can create epic content in a number of different mediums.
But for Facebook, video is my favourite.
People can consume my videos right there on the platform, they don’t need to leave Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/leadguru/videos/531520720513651/
In my experience, the key to creating truly high quality content is to spend a lot of time on each piece.
And I mean A LOT of time.
It takes around 20 hours of work for me to produce a really high quality 10 minute video.
Now, I know everyone is busy, and you couldn’t commit that much time to creating content on a weekly or even monthly basis.
That’s okay.
If spending much more time on your content, means that you produce less content, that’s absolutely fine.
It’s much better to produce 6 pieces of content a year that are outstanding.
Than 50 pieces that are average.
Brand Awareness Campaigns
Let’s move on to step 2, B which stands for brand awareness campaigns.
Just because you produce epic content, that doesn’t mean people are going to see it.
Organic traffic on Facebook is all but dead.
There are just too many advertisers.
Why would Facebook put your content in people’s newsfeeds for free when someone will pay to put their content there?
So, if you want people to see your content on Facebook then you are going to have to advertise it.
Creating Brand Awareness Campaigns
Fortunately for us, there is a Facebook ad campaign objective that is specifically designed for that purpose.
It’s called a brand awareness campaign.
Brand awareness campaigns are designed to help advertisers find the audiences most likely to recall their ads.
That’s exactly what you are looking for.
You want people to recall your content and your brand.
Because people that remember your epic content are going to pay attention when you release new pieces of content.
And when you promote your products and services.
With brand awareness campaigns I think it’s best to start by identifying a few targeting options that are closely related to your products and services…
And consistently promoting content to those people.
For our clients, I will often take 10-20% of their total ad budget and dedicate that to these cold audience brand awareness campaigns.
But, in order for someone to become a loyal fan of yours they will need to consume multiple pieces of content.
With brand awareness, consistency is key.
Which means you should also create brand awareness campaigns that target warmer audiences.
I’ve found that the best warm audiences to target with brand awareness campaigns are website custom audiences and page engagement custom audiences.
How much money you spend on these warm audience brand awareness campaigns depends on how large those custom audiences are.
If you’re just getting started, then your custom audiences will be small and you’ll have to use a small budget.
However, if you already have a large following then you should spend a much larger proportion of your total budget on these campaigns.
Step 3 – Repeat
Let’s move onto the 3rd and final step in the CBR method, which is Repeat.
This step could not be more simple.
But it’s such an important part of using Facebook ads to grow your brand that I had to give it, its own step.
The CBR method will massively reduce the time is takes for you to grow your brand.
But even so, you cannot grow a large brand in a couple of weeks.
It does take a few months for you to really see the benefits of your brand awareness campaigns.
The longer you use the CBR method, the more of an impact it will have.
A year from now, it will be making a much bigger difference to your business than in 3 months’ time.
In 3-5 years you could be astounded at the size of your following and the massive impact that has on your business.
Because of that, it’s really important that you keep repeating steps 1 and 2.
Keep creating epic content, even if you can’t do so very often.
And keep those brand awareness campaigns running, even if it’s only with a tiny budget.
Conclusion
Facebook is one of the most powerful advertising platforms ever created and it’s a perfect tool for growing your brand.
The rewards of consistent brand building on Facebook can be phenomenal, but it does take time to see great results.
For the greatest brand building effect, I would recommend using the CBR Method:
- Content – create epic content, preferably videos
- Brand awareness – use Facebook’s brand awareness campaign objective to promote your epic content to cold and warm audiences
- Repeat
So, are you going to create educational or entertaining content for your brand awareness campaigns?
Let me know by leaving a comment below.
