With over 500 million users, facebook appears to be a great harvesting ground for network marketers and direct sellers. For someone just getting started, it can feel like an overwhelming sea of faces and a ripe time to start pushing out marketing messages. One tool that facebook has created to help people effectively market their business to it’s users is paid advertising. Facebook has partnered with Google, and using their adwords engine has created a pay-per click advertising model that, when used properly can help a direct sales consultant reach out to a targeted group of new customers, eager for their product or service. Here’s a basic overview of how Facebook Ads may work for your direct sales business.

Targeted Demographics

Want to reach cat loving twenty-somethings in a fifty mile radius of Peoria, Illinois? Facebook’s powerful demographic surveying gives them a very targeted database from which to draw leads. You can target not only gender, but location, interests, and other publicly available data. You can target fans of a particular page, product or service. You can even specify degrees of separation (friends of friends, or people that aren’t connected to the page at all) to make your advertising dollars go farther.

On-site or Off-site Linking

Your ad can link to a page on or off facebook. If you select an off-facebook landing page, be sure that page has the appropriate privacy policies and disclaimers, otherwise, facebook may disallow your ad. If your company allows you to advertise your consultant site, you could drive traffic straight there, or to your own opt-in site to gather leads for your list. Alternatively, you could direct them to any page within facebook, including your own “fan” page. This is a popular way to gather more fans quickly, by advertising your fan page to other targeted prospects already on facebook.

Pay Per Click or Impression

The choice is yours! If you are trying to create awareness, paying per impression can be a less expensive option for getting your ads into the marketplace. Pay per click generally costs more, but you are only paying when someone actually clicks on your link, instead of for every time your ad is displayed on a page.

More Targeting = More Expensive

In theory, because you are getting more specific as you get more targeted, you are getting better qualified leads, and thus should have better performance on the ad. In light of that fact, it costs more to target 44 year old women in Chicago than it does to target women, or 44-year olds, or people in Chicago. Be sure to watch your budget carefully.

A Word of Caution

Because facebook can generate thousands of views in a few minutes, it’s important to track your ad campaign very carefully – especially when you’re first starting out. It’s easy to spend money quickly and although you can set your daily spending limit, you want to be sure you’re getting the most possible exposure for your ad at the times your targeted clients are online. If you spend your daily limit in the first few minutes each day, many potential clients won’t even see your ad.

For most direct sales companies, facebook advertising is a no-no, as is most online advertising. For those companies that allow it, however, Facebook offers a great opportunity to find and attract high-quality, targeted leads for your direct sales business. More leads equates to more sales, bookings and recruits, which leads to a better book of business this season.

© 2010 Lisa Robbin Young

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Lisa Robbin Young offers direct sales coaching and training to direct sales professionals looking to grow their business like a real business instead of an expensive hobby. Sign up for her free weekly ezine at https://www.homepartysolution.com.

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Action tip: Take a look at Facebook’s ad feature and see how specific you can get. No need to place an ad if you don’t want to, but you can see the kinds of things that Facebook will help you sort through to ind your perfect-fit customer on Facebook.