5 steps to attract customers on Facebook using visual content

It happens to all of us… you came across a piece of content and started reading – word for word. Though you planned to skim the first few paragraphs and hurry to the conclusion section, but you just couldn’t take your eyes off the screen.

If you can relate with the above scenario, then you’ve been captivated by visuals. Truly, the magic wand behind engaging content is “visual.”

Human beings respond to visual content more passionately than plain text.

Recent study on the impact of visuals on content found that, “posts that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only posts, and photos on Facebook get 53% more likes and 104 more comments.”

When it comes to effective social media marketing, using visual content can help you communicate better and attract the ideal customers.

Visual content is one marketing trend that’s impossible to ignore. According to WebDam, “An estimated 84% of communications will be visual by 2018.”

Not all social media networks are created equal in terms of their lead generation potentials and market reach. Facebook is still the #1 social platform to generate more targeted customers.

However, the competition is growing by the day. Sadly, every minute you spend deliberating and planning on how to create a Facebook campaign, you’re exposing your brand and business to more competition. It’s time to launch out…

So without further ado, implement these 5 simple things and attract motivated customers on Facebook using visual content.

How to attract customers on Facebook using visual content in 5 steps

1. Decide your approach: free vs. paid

According to the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report, 52% of all marketers sourced a lead from Facebook in the same year. In 2015 till date, that number has increased tremendously.

However, it leaves a lot of marketers confused. Also, questions such as, “where does these leads and customers come from?” began to emerge.

We need to draw a line between paid Facebook advertising and free promotions. Whichever approach you use, you want to ensure that the leads are of the highest quality.

For example, if you decide to join Facebook groups and participate in the discussion for free, you have to be truly selective.

Because if you join groups that are not relevant to your industry or specific offer/service/product, you might be wasting time interacting with the group members.

On the other hand, if you choose paid advertising, you should be ready to spend at least $10 per day. But you can be assured that the leads and customers will be more targeted to your campaign, since you’re guided on the right audience when setting up your campaign, based on their interests.

Therefore, before you create any visual content, you need to decide which approach (free or paid) you intend to use for customer acquisition on Facebook.

Of course, you can use both free and paid. Remember that you require a level of expertise to succeed at facebook marketing.

2. Create visually-appealing content

Customer acquisition is a hot topic. I usually enjoy discussing it with my fans and email subscribers.

The truth is that if you’re able to set up social media campaigns that inspire people to buy your product, subscribe to your list, or sign up to try your software, you’re going to be successful at digital marketing. It doesn’t matter your business model.

Here’s an example which shows the impact of visual content: The Book Binding Workshop created a social campaign, and offered a free 248 page hardcover book to anyone who purchased $300 of book binding supplies.

And because this campaign was timely and valuable to the target audience, the company increased their fan base from 50 to 650 in just a month, and generated $15,000 in new sales.

But the type of content you create matters.

Over the past 3 years, visual content became an unstoppable explosion.

Every social media timeline was filled with visuals such as infographics, images, screenshots. Illustrated visuals like icons, logos, vector graphics were not left out. These visual assets have dominated the social platform.

3. When creating visual content for your Facebook campaign, focus on clarity rather than creativity.

Yes, it’s better for your message to be clear than creative. People want answers to their bugging questions, not necessarily a state-of-the-art content that’s complicated.

To get started creating your visual content, you can use Canva to create a simple, unique, captivating images for free with a simplistic drag-and-drop interface.

Alternatively, you can find an enormous amount of relevant quality vectors on Freepik that can be used free of charge (except with attributions).

As for custom visual content such as infographics and charts, you can hire a professional graphic designer at Dribbble, or outsource the job to Visual.ly. Surprisingly, you can design your own infographics at Pikochart.

4. Implement email-gated content tactic

Do you want to put your Facebook customer acquisition on steroids? Then you need to implement email-gated content tactic. This tactic helps you reach out and attract direct leads on facebook.

What are direct leads? These are leads you generate when you share visual content on your Facebook page or timeline that redirects people to a form on your website or landing page.

Direct leads are much more targeted, because they have taken the bold step to visit an external web page (other than Facebook). Consequently, they must be targeted.

Often times, these are the people you need to send to your gated content.

Many B2B and B2C companies like HubSpot, Moz, WishPond, and so on uses gated-content tactic to generate more leads. “Gated-content tactic” is a system that enables you to hide your best content until someone subscribes to your email list or likes your page.

In other words, you will hide the exclusive content only to unveil it when a specific action has been taken. Gated content has generated more leads for several brands than ungated content.

I’m sure that you have ebooks, webinars, software, and other products that offer some value.

You can give these informative materials away in exchange for your customer’s email address. This is truly one of the easiest way to drive customers into the top of your conversion funnel.

To set up a gated content and drive even more users to download it, start by housing the registrations forms in Tabs on your Facebook Page.

Wishpond, for example, offers a lot of social media marketing eBooks on their Facebook Page. Fans who want to download the ebooks for free must first click on the Tabs to submit their email.

5. Facebook contest

When it comes to attracting customers on Facebook using visual content, you’ve got to understand that offering something of value for free is a proven marketing tactic. It’s never failed any brand or business that implemented it. At least none that I know of.

Last but not least, you can also generate more leads and attract motivated customers by hosting a visual-focused Facebook contest.

I can never forget the “Lay’s Do Us A Favor” Facebook campaign that generated a lot of publicity, loyal fans, and new customers.

Never underestimate the potentials of Facebook. It doesn’t matter your past experiences, or the “failure stories” you have read on blogs – social media marketing through visual content is a proven marketing tactic.

Have you acquired customers on Facebook using visual content?