My Dad is killing it with Facebook ads
Edit - What we thought was Facebook was actually Twitter. Needed to track conversions better
So my parents run a small study skills business in the UK. Been going for 15 years. All the marketing they've ever done has just been sending flyers to schools (their target market) and then its sort of grown from word of mouth.
He hates technology. Has one of those old bricks for a phone. But outta nowhere these last few months he's started teaching himself how to run FB ads.
Basically he does his motivational / study skills stuff in schools. Then he records some of the teachers afterwards talking about how good the sessions was and why other schools should book my parents company. Then he picks the best few and puts them out as FB video ads targeting teachers (his target market).
He spent £150 this weekend on ads. And we've had 5 enquires through the website. Each customer pays £500+ for the session. And a lot rebook so the LTV is like £2000.
Doesn't take a genius to work out that running some digital ads could change his business round. He's kicking himself for not trying it sooner. Now I'm not writing this to gloat about my dad.
What I'm saying is do not sleep on ads. I've had conversations with Indie Hackers where they've told me proudly that they've never run an ad in their life. Ok, you do you. But we're in the making money game here and if your cost per acquisition < Life time value it makes sense to run ads.
So give it a shot. Cause it's not cheating.
Mr. Dry is an absolute legend, Harry. His role in the Kanye Story is fantastic. Glad he discovered FB marketing and it's working for him too - I'm sure he got highly inspired thank to your passion for marketing.
Hahaha! Cheers Frank, old boy! Yeah, he most certainly is.
And maybe you're right. He does subscribe to Marketing Examples after all. I'd love to write more about ads actually. Haven't really done a PPC case study there yet. I know strong on this domain, so anything you've come across do let me know.
Such a wholesome story, your dad rocks 😄My dad also started doing that for his computer shop. He started recording time-lapses of him fixing stuff and buying ads on Facebook. He's getting a lot of new customers (even from different cities) and it's working out well.
Oof that one hurt. I haven't run any ads for Sizzy yet and I feel proud/bad about it because I know that with ads the popularity can skyrocket.
Thanks for the motivation!
Actually man, I kind of flipped my mind on this yesterday. Leverage the advantages you have. And that's Twitter. You're really good at it.
So I'd double down on your strength and just focus on growing you're twitter more. Quick tips / funny videos whatever ... And then somehow make Sizzzy relevant every now and then. Just by being transparent with the highs and lows / money / whatever
Haha! That's really awesome. Cudos to your old man.
IMO, you've put in work building a sick product. You should def give it for a spin with ads. Especially if you haven't got time to write blogs and stuff to promote.
Your landing page looks slick. And that's all the more reason to try (because conversions will be higher). If you give it a short let me know how it goes :)
Great subject Harry, ads when done well can bring a lot of results. Maybe starting off with Facebook ads is a bit scary (marketing txt + cover picture) for some fellow hackers here. This is why I recommend to at least start with Adwords (which is more forgiving in terms of budget and content).
Interesting. We went on a long walk the other day and I did recommend trying Google Ads as well. Because our website is no where near the top of the SERP. Cheers Alessandro
Good one!
Haha - Well, in that case I'm actually genuinely really proud of him for picking up digital ads at a dads age. And yeah, I've passed it on.
You should be proud. A great "marketing example" indeed. :)
That's true, because MindblowingMarketingHQ said it.
Haha - thanks Bruce!
Has he tried Google Ads. I'd love to know how they compare for your dad's business?
Yeah, he's got pretty fired up with it now. Saw him watching a Google Ad's tutorial last night. Will write another update when he tries those ones.
I think it should work well because I know a lot of teachers just blindly Google this sort of thing. And no competitors are running Ads (no one in this market is very digital marketing savvy)
That's true. Either you pay with money (ads) or you pay with time. I think we can make as much money as we want but time is a scarce resource.
Yep. Bang on Akshay. It makes sense for me to work 1 day a week and invest the money back into my business with ads.
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Cheers Alex. I'll pass this stuff onto my Dad.
Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head. It's all about the CAC : LTV maths. And if you've got spent time building a great website which converts then it's likely your CAC will be lower than otherwise. So a great website is actually all more the reason to try it.
NumbersBoost looks like some hardcore stuff btw! I imagine your LTV could be pretty high.
And thanks for the support of Marketing Examples. Appreciate it.
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Interesting one. Thanks for sharing Alex. Smart move. One big thing with Marketing Examples (essentially a blog) is how much inbound it pulls in. If I had a consulting business / product to sell I'd be rich!
So definitely shrewd what you're doing. Good luck.
And regards to CAC / LTV. Thank you. And I'm planning an article on this
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Hi Liam,
Yep, I think your thoughts are bang on and creating something free in exchange for an email will do far better. My Dad's had the same problem. The "conversion" for him is a school enquiring. And that's really tough. Because they need to fill in a few different boxes etc ...
So next weekend I'm going to add on a popup which captures email in exchange for free content for school assemblies. So yeah, I definitely think your new approach will work better. Good luck
And, thanks a lot for checking out the interview.
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