I thought this week I would share my experience of running a Facebook offer.  Facebook offers are a fairly new type of status update for Business Pages with over 100 fans.

You first need to set up an advertising account with Facebook by creating an ad using Adverts Manager – be aware you will need to switch back to yourself before doing this as only real people can actually have a credit card!  Choose Offer and follow the tips given below and enter your credit card details.

If you already have an advertising account, you should see the option to create a status update of type offer.

 

1. Click offer and you will need to choose what type of offer you want to display.  You can choose an offer redeemable in store, online or both.  I have recently implemented e-commerce on my website so can now create discount codes.

2. Next you need to enter the web address relevant to the discount and the discount code,

3. Upload an image that should be used for the discount.  This shouldn’t be your logo as your logo will be displayed as well.
(Note: I fell foul of the recent change in rules with my first attempt.  If the image contains text, the text must not take up more than 20% of the area of the image (unless it is clearly part of the product packaging).  Out of interest, this has just changed for cover photos too – another post to come!)
You also need to enter the text for the offer.  Facebook recommends that the discount or ‘2 for 1’ offer comes first.  You only have 90 characters for this.
Enter the number available together with any terms and conditions and the expiry date.

4. Once you have done this, Facebook will email you a preview of the offer.

5. Now you need to choose your budget.  For £32, I was able to run an advert with an estimated reach of 36K – 67K

So what results can you expect?

I started my advert running Tuesday morning, it is now Wednesday night.

So far, 4,340 people have seen the post, One person has bought a different course – but interacted as a result of the offer.  I have received 4 new page likes (2 from people I don’t know), 4 likes on the offer (2 different people I don’t know) and 15 people have claimed the offer.  This means that they have received an email from Facebook with the link and offer code.  They will also get a reminder from Facebook on Thursday that the offer will expire soon so needs to be redeemed.

Strangely the other 14 people haven’t yet bought.  Could this mean that the offer was emailed to their spam folder, they haven’t had a chance to buy or they have had second thoughts?  Who knows?

So has it been worth it?

Well the offer is running until Friday, so there is still time to get those sales.  I think it has been worth it – selling the 1 course has paid for the investment and I have got the brand and the concept in front of people.  If I sell any of the courses that have been claimed, it will definitely have been worth it.  Hopefully the people that have engaged with the offer or page will engage next time they see an update from the page. I have certainly seen an increase in the number of people who have seen subsequent posts, so it has improved my ‘Edgerank’.

I wouldn’t repeat regularly at the moment – but I can see an offer working every 3 – 6 months.

What do you think?  Have you tried offers or are you going to?  Do have a look at my offer on the Concise Training Facebook page

Update 1/4/13 – Just to let you know the final figures.  7,983 people saw the post, 5 likes, 34 claimed the offer (though nobody made a purchase).  The numbers of people who saw subsequent posts has doubled, so it has made a difference to the Edgerank algorithm.  I achieved an additional 6 likes to the page.  I have sold other courses during this time frame.  So in summary, I think it is worth repeating every few months with different courses and offers.