A Modern Marketing Playbook: Using Facebook Ads To Build Brand Equity & How Brand Equity Improves Your Facebook Ads.

Today, we’re taking a deep dive into Branding and Facebook Ads.

We will cover some important topics, including:

• The 9 benefits of building a strong brand.

• How to leverage Facebook ads to build it.

• Why the golden era of marketing is over.

• The “side effects” of this modern marketing strategy.

Ready?

Let’s travel back in time for a moment.

To a time when a little condom company changed how we approach marketing.

Back in 1975 condoms were kept behind the counter at pharmacies.

You’d walk in, ask the pharmacist for a pack of condoms, and they would hand you one.

There was no walking up and down the aisle browsing the selection. Because of this Durex felt they were losing a lot of money.

The fate of their bottom line was in the hands of the pharmacist grabbing a pack of Durex.

So, in 1976 they devised a plan to change this.

Their plan? To sponsor a Formula 1 racecar at the Grand Prix.

And this seemingly insignificant move took back control of their profits. Instead of relying on the pharmacists – Instead, everyone was demanding Durex.

That year… 

Every time these men would sit down and watch F1, they’d hear:

“Durex around the corner”
“Durect pulls into first”
“Durex, Durex, Durex”

The result?

Brand awareness.

Men began to march into their local pharmacies and DEMAND a pack of Durex.

What can a pack of condoms teach us about building a strong personal brand?

I’ve loved this Stephen King quote ever seen seeing it.

“A product can be copied by a competitor, a brand is unique.” - Stephen King.

Well said Mr King.

This highlights 1 of many benefits of building a brand. But first, let’s understand what brand equity is.

Brand equity consists of two components:

The first is brand awareness.

The second is brand association.

First, we need people to know that we exist.

Then, we need to create positive associations with our brand so our brand becomes top of mind when they are making buying decisions.

(Negative associations can be made with brands – think of the last shitty experience you had and you swore off that company/restaurant/guru)

This research has influenced my perspective…

In 2014 Data2Decisions released research on the top 10 ways to improve advertising ROI.

Among their list included things like targeting, creative, where you’re advertising, and even the price point.

But here’s what topped the list…

Brand Size.

With a profit multiplier of 18x.

Now, if that alone isn’t enough to get you reconsidering investing in building your brand…

Here are 9 benefits of a strong brand – and why you should start building one.

If you’re starting to understand it’s important, here’s why:

1) Marketing ROI: 

Bigger brands get a higher ROI from their marketing. As stated, Brand Size has a profit multiplier of 18x according to Data2Decisions. Topping their list of ways to maximize ROI.

2) Premium Pricing: 

The strongest brands in the market can often charge upwards of a 30+% premium over the commodity equivalent. Bigger brands have a higher perceived value and this decreases people's sensitivity to the price.

3) Increased Opportunites:

The bigger your brand the more opportunities you have. For example, if you sell energy drinks, a large brand gives you a greater opportunity to be sold in more stores and get meetings with large retailers.

For an online business, this could mean the bigger your brand, the easier it is to get on people’s podcasts, find JV partners, or land brand deals, etc.

4) Protection Against Competition:

“Brand” acts as a market differentiator. Bigger brands can last longer and can not be copied as easily. It becomes a MOAT.

Stephen King wrote: “A product can be copied by a competitor, a brand is unique.”

5) Sales Volume:

Bigger brands generate more volume in sales.

6) Brand Loyalty:

Once people establish a bond with a brand, they are more likely to re-buy and become less likely to switch to a competitor.

7) Diversification:

The bigger the brand the easier it is to diversify or branch into new products or markets. Take Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who’s launched Teramana Tequila, ZOA Energy drinks, and owns the XFL (to name a few). He’s now worth almost a billion dollars and in multiple sectors.

As an online business, this could be launching new programs, courses, partnerships, and more.

8) Teams & Employees:

Bigger brands can acquire better people, at a lower cost. They often work for less and stay longer. Take Google, they have access to the best talent on the planet because of their Brand Equity.

9) Brand Becomes An (Actual) Asset:

When we speak of large companies like Coke, or Pepsi, the brand itself becomes an actual asset that can increase the valuation (worth of the company).

Today there’s no need to name a racecar after your business.

Although, that would be cool.

We can use modern tools like the phone in our pocket, social media, and Facebook ads to build our brands.

Strategic advertising builds our brand and as our brand grows it improves the performance of our advertising and this cyclical effect continues perpetually.

There’s a neat synergy between Branding and Facebook Ads.

As we just walked through we learned that brand size improves marketing ROI.

And we can use paid advertising such as Facebook Ads to build our brand.

This cyclical effect continues perpetually.

This is why figures like Tony Robbins, Kylie Jenner, or Logan Paul will always outperform someone who is brand new – using the same message, same content, or the same ads.

Here’s how we can strategically leverage our Facebook Ads into brand building.

Reach new audiences.

People can’t buy from you if they don’t know who you are. Facebook Ads can be used to expand our audience and build brand awareness. Traditional conversion ads have the highest CPMs (cost) and we can use modern strategies to expand awareness more efficiently.

Tap into unique customer segments.

People buy for different reasons. We can leverage our Facebook Ads to tap into new and unique market segments. We don’t need to rely on a single media buy or Super Bowl ad using one message. Facebook allows us to efficiently reach all ranges of our audience.

Nurture, build rapport, and relational equity.

People won’t buy from you if they don’t know what you do, why you’re different from the competition, or how you are different than what they’ve tried before. With Facebook Ads, we can nurture people once they become aware of us. Selling them on who we are, what we do, why it’s different, who it’s helped, our authority, etc.

Present offers and stay top of mind.

Present offers to take the next step, once they are ready. With ads, we maintain top-of-mind awareness. We extend invitations to deepen the relationship through purchasing a product or taking smaller steps like joining our email list, entering a messenger chat, downloading freebies, or communities, etc.

Use behavioural-based triggers to supplement the customer journey.

Their behavior can show purchase intent or a desire to deepen their relationship with our brand. Visiting a sales page, downloading a case study, watching a full-length video, or watching 25% of videos on Meta. Each brand has a unique journey that we can identify triggers as to when people are ready to take the next step.

Plug holes within our customer journey and sales process.

70-80% of people abandon their shopping cart. But 60+% of people don’t opt-in to your list, 97+% of people take no action on your website, 70% of people that download a training DON’T watch it, and the list goes on. How can be PLUG these holes? With Facebook Ads.

There are other benefits not converted here such as using ads to pull people off the platform to deepen the relationship, increase engagement, creating a movement, but this should help you understand that:

Those that rely on conversion ads will eventually fail.

The “Buy My Shit” and make money days are over.

We cannot rely on day 1 profits anymore.

Or pushy sales tactics.

We see competition and consideration time increasing especially with high-priced products.

According to Dean Jackson, 85% of people will wait more than 90 days to buy.

That’s why the strategy we implement needs to change. And why we need to start building brands.

If you only remember 4 things, remember these:

#1: People can’t buy from you if they don’t know who you are.

#2: People won’t buy from you if they don’t know what you do, why you’re different from the competition, or how you are different than what they’ve tried before.

#3: People won’t buy from you if you’re not present/top of mind when they are ready.

#4: And people are more likely to buy after 3 to 18 months.

“Side Effects” of synergistic modern marketing strategy.

This is often referred to as the “Halo” effect.

You will start to notice things like this happening.

Unattributed leads/sales.

Your leads and sales become harder to attribute to their source. This is why shifting away from ROAS and the data points in “Facebook Ads Manager” is important and begin looking at MER and top-line improvements.

Organic growth.

Your social media following(s) naturally start to grow. You also begin to see a rise in website traffic, organic/social engagement, and what we refer to in marketing as “direct” sales.

Performance increases.

You will begin to notice increases in things like CTRs, CPLs, CAC, and Conversion rates. But there may not be any quantifiable reason. (Remember the Tony Robbins and Kylie Jenner note above)

Referrals and word of mouth.

This is especially important for coaches and creators. Even for small businesses. Branding and being top-of-mind. Building relationships. These can have profound effects on referrals, word-of-mouth, and people taking action. This is not limited to buying behavior but referrals from a networking standpoint are just as valuable.

Improved customer satisfaction and retention.

When your brand grows and you attract more (and better) customers you eventually have happier customers AND they stick around longer. Oh, also, they are more likely to buy other stuff you sell.

Branding doesn’t rely on paid advertising.

But it sure can be leveraged to amplify your efforts.

To scale our business we need to think about building and developing our brands. Then evolving our Facebook Ad strategies to supplement this effort. And watching how this strategy improves our ad performance.

Landon

PS. One of the ‘simplest’ ways to start evolving your Facebook ad strategy is to integrate your best-performing social media content.

I’ve created a free 90-minute over-the-shoulder video training where I walk you through converting your content into assets that build your brand, and email list, and sell your products. You can watch it here: https://ck.landonp.com/ctc