Facebook Ad Targeting Tips for Teacherpreneurs | 15

Creating powerful and effective FB ad targeting groups is really important to successful ad campaigns, but it can be challenging. From warm to cool to cold audiences, in this episode we talk about the three types of audiences you need to be setting up as well as how to find your perfect people in each one.

There’s are three parts to effective ad targeting

1) the messaging 2) the creative 3) the ideal customer

The three types of audiences are...
1. warm audiences who have interacted with your brand previously. This includes FB page engagement, IG account engagement, your website traffic, TPT audiences, and your email list. The more someone interacts with your the warmer they are, which in turn means they’re more likely to buy from you

2. cool (lookalike) audiences which are a reflection and expansion of your warm audiences. These are often some of the best-performing audiences because the algorithm is pretty good at what it does (collecting and analyzing data). To create a lookalike audience, the original audience needs at least 100 people (but 1000 is even better).

3. cold interest-based audiences that allow you to grow and scale your business. These are the hardest to get right yet essential for growing your audience as they are people who’ve never heard of your brand. When you’re making these audiences you want to aim for an audience size of 500,000 to 5 million.

How to create Cold Interest-Based Audiences

• start with the most basic foundation of who you’re targeting —> maybe it’s moms, maybe it’s teachers… this first characteristic is going to be really broad

• narrow by an identifiable characteristic —> think subject or grade level… you can use your messaging to further target your perfect people

• think of these two layers (the foundation and the identifiable characteristic) as the circles in a Venn diagram. Your perfect people are in the overlapping middle area.

If you’re targeting teacher business owners, then you can add a third layer such as “Business Page Admins” to further narrow your targeting and really find those teacherpreneurs you want to work with.

If you’d like support with creating your perfect audiences you can always book a strategy call with me and we can walk through it together!  (Don’t forget to use the code PODCAST to save $50)

✨Book a Strategy Call✨

Don’t Forget To SUBSCRIBE

&

REVIEW the podcast!

Thanks for listening to this week’s Saturday Strategy Session! If you found this podcast helpful for your teacherpreneur journey, then head over to iTunes, so you can subscribe and leave a review. Each and every review means the world to me and helps me continue to create valuable content while also reaching more fellow ambitious teacher business owners just like you!

Episode Transcript:

Hey there, I'm Jenzaia and this is Market Scale Grow. A podcast created for ambitious teacherpreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world, achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more money with weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers. Just like you. My goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams.

Okay, so before we jump into the episode, I am super excited to share a brand new freebie with you. It's my targeting ideas for Facebook ads. If you've dabbled in Facebook ads or you've done them and you've tried them, and you're just looking for some fresh inspiration for your audiences, this freebie is for you. I share my top Facebook ad targeting groups for you so that you can have inspiration and find those people that are perfect for what you have to offer. From warm audiences to cool lookalike audiences, to cold interest-based audiences. I cover all three in this freebie. Head to marketscalegrow.com/audiences to grab your copy today.

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Market Scale Grow. I am your host Jenzaia, and I am so thankful that you come and join me on this journey. Today, this episode is pretty exciting. We are going to be diving into Facebook ad targeting for teacher business owners. In the intro, you probably heard about the freebie that I have to offer. We're going to be walking through and I'm going to be giving more details and more information about that freebie. So if you haven't downloaded it yet, then hit pause, and go to marketscalegrow.com/audiences. Yeah, that's plural audiences within an S. So you can download this resource and then you can kind of follow along. Okay, so I'm going to assume that you've downloaded it. You're ready to go and thank you so much for coming back.

So the first thing to know is that targeting has three pieces to it. The first one that we're going to dive into in this episode is finding your ideal client or your ideal customer. One of the ways that you do that through Facebook ads is the audiences that you create. The second piece is the visual appeal, and that's your ad images or the videos you choose. Videos and images are a great way to further attract the people who you want by using colours and images that will speak to them directly. Sometimes using text is really important too, so sometimes in my ads for my TPT store, I'll actually put French in my images because I am trying to attract French teachers. That's a really good way to signal to them that, "Hey, this is a product in French. This is something I want to look into." Then the last one is your messaging and your ad copy, and making sure again that you are attracting the right people, but then you're also repelling people who don't fit.

So I recently did a launch with a client who serves high school English teachers. It was really important that we used language and messaging that ensured that she was speaking directly to high school teachers and not middle school teachers, because often there is a bit of crossover in these teachers and their interest in help. So we needed to really make sure that it was specific and that middle school teachers would say, "oh, this isn't actually for me" and high school teachers would say, "yes, this is for me." So we did that by the language we used in images and by the language that was used in the Facebook ads themselves.

So again, today, we're going to be diving into that first part, the specific ideal customer that you have. And I could go on for an hour about ICA and creating that ideal customer avatar. But all I'm going to do right now is just say, you really need to know that person really well- their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their obstacles, their objections- just getting in their head and knowing them better really than they know themselves and better than anyone else knows them. What words would they use and how would they speak? That is really going to be what helps you get laser focused and really zone in on your people so that you're speaking directly at them.

So today we're going to be talking about creating your ad audiences on Facebook. There are three distinct groups that it's important to know about and important to use. The first one is your warm audiences. These are people who have interacted with your brand on Facebook or Instagram or your website, and it also includes people on your email list.

The second group is what I call cool audiences, or lookalike audiences. Now, these people have likely never interacted with your brand, but Facebook has taken your warm audiences (so let's say your Instagram one) they've taken that Instagram audience, squish it down to get the general characteristics of people who've interacted with you on Instagram, and re-expanded it to find a million more people that are similar. So it's almost like one of those funhouse mirrors. The mirror makes you look like you're tiny, and then the mirror makes you look gigantic. So your audience is kind of tiny, throw it into that funhouse mirror and it just expands and explodes. That's what Facebook is doing. That's why lookalike audiences are usually really, really good because they are a reflection of your current warm audience, people who are currently engaging with you currently on your email list. So those are what I refer to as cool lookalike audiences.

Then the last group is your cold audiences. Again, these people have never interacted with you either, and these audiences are based on interests and demographics. And that is what we're really going to spend the most of this episode on discussing.

But first, let's just quickly go over all of the warm audiences that you should have created in your Facebook ads manager and be using when you're targeting warm audiences. So, the first one is your email list. Pull that list off of your email service provider- so that's Flowdesk, ConvertKit, AWeber, Kajabi has it in there. Then you're going to drop it into the Facebook ads audiences for your email list. You can update this without creating a new email list audience by just clicking on the original one you have, and then there's an update button, and then you'll just drop your new one in.

So if you are currently running lead gen and you're collecting 10, 20, 50 emails a day, you want to be updating your email list in the Facebook ads manager I would say every week to two weeks. If you're collecting it more slowly, maybe 1 to 2, 5 potentially a day, updating it at least once a month. If you're collecting them more slowly, then it's fine if you just update it as you run and campaign potentially, or once every few months, every six months. But as your email list grows, it's important to update that list so that Facebook has the most up-to-date information about who they should be targeting.

You can also create audiences for your Facebook business page engagement, your Instagram business profile engagement. Those ones are great. They will be a lot bigger than you expect them to be because engagement is literally anything from clicking on your profile or an image, clicking, read, more liking, sharing, commenting, watching a story, following you. Any of those things are considered engagement. So they're a great way to kind of pull in a larger group of people who may or may not be already seeing your content on a regular basis.

Then there is your website traffic. So if you pixel your website, which you absolutely should, then that can collect data about the people who visit your website. You can do your entire website, but you can also narrow it down to specific pages. So for example, for a single course that you're launching, you might want to specifically pull out people who have hit the sales page. Then you can retarget them if they don't purchase it and say like, "Hey, don't forget that this is open." Or "Hey, if you have questions, I'd love to answer them, send me a DM." So there's a whole bunch of different types of retargeting ads because you can either do your entire website, which is what I recommend you start with. Then as you kind of figure out where you're going and what you want to do, then you can pull those specific pages.

Then the last one that I highly recommend all people who have TPT stores do is add your pixel to your TPT store. You do have to be a premium seller to do this, but if you're a premium seller, add your pixel to your TPT store, because that is another place where you can collect your audiences. Then you can create audiences specifically of viewed content, add to cart, and wish list, which are great options. Again, it will give you more people to put in your bucket.

Now, lookalike audiences. Every single one of those that I just listed off as warm audiences, you want to create a lookalike of. Because again, this is a mirror, it's reflecting, so those lookalike audiences are going to be really great for you to use. A couple of notes about lookalike audiences...

Number one, I like to pool all of my lookalike audiences together in one ad set, because there will be a crossover. If you do them each individually, then, first of all, that's a huge budget that you're running to a whole bunch of different ad sets, but secondly, you're going to be competing against yourself because again, these are going to be very similar audiences. It's going to cause your costs to rise, so the best way to do it is just to pool them into one ad set and run your ads to all of your lookalikes together.

The second thing that you need to know is that it requires at least a hundred people in your original audience for Facebook to even create a lookalike audience. So for example, if your email list is like mine and only has about 30 people on it, it's too small. I can't create a lookalike audience of my email list at this point. Once it hits a hundred, then you can start creating lookalike audiences. Facebook takes all those people and aggregates the data to find similar characteristics. The more people you have in that original audience, the better the Facebook algorithm is at aggregating that data and the better your lookalike audience will become. Time and time again, myself testing this and other big marketing gurus testing this, have found that it really takes about a thousand people or more for those lookalike audiences to really, really be good. So don't shy away from creating a lookalike audience. If you only have a hundred or 500 people in the original audience, but just know that continue to build that warm audience, because once it hits a thousand, it's going to be that much better.

Okay, now the real meat and potatoes of creating audiences. These are your cold audiences. When you're creating cold audiences, your goal is to get between 500,000 and 5 million people into this bucket. Way too often, I see people who've just put every single keyword they can possibly think of that their people may be interested into one bucket, and they have this audience that's like 85 million people. That is way too big. Facebook does really like big numbers, but not that big. That is so big that it's like, I don't really know who I'm actually supposed to be looking for. But if you can find an audience of 500,000, 5 million, that's kind of the sweet spot where it's big enough that the Facebook algorithm can do its thing, but it's not so big that it gets lost in how many people are available for it to target.

I like to set up my targeting kind of like a Venn diagram, with either two or three circles. Then in each circle, I only put three, maybe four or five different things in that circle. So my first circle is almost always teachers. I put teachers, Teachers Pay Teachers, and then certified teachers as my third one. These are all interests. I don't want teacher jobs. I want people who are interested in teachers. I want people who are interested in TPT. So I always go for the interest, not the job or whatever any of the other kinds of categories are. I always go for interests. So that's my first circle. You may be targeting moms or parents. You may be targeting SLPs. You may be targeting another group of people. Whatever that kind of foundation of who they are, that's what you should be putting in that first bucket, is trying to figure out three to five keywords that you can create your first circle of the Venn diagram. That is again, really foundational to who these people are.

Each circle of the Venn diagram within that circle, these keywords that you're using, those are 'or' factors. So what I mean by that is, when I do teachers, Teachers Pay Teachers, or certified teachers, the person only needs to be interested in one of them. It's an 'or' factor between them. When I add a second circle to the Venn diagram by pressing the 'narrow by' button, that's an 'and' factor.

So now, for example, going back to that teacher that has a course for high school English teachers. For her, so I have teachers in my first bucket. Then my second bucket in this first audience is high school. So I'm trying to find people who are interested in teachers. Then my second one I'll use high school things. So high school- you can do 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade. That's going to find people who are in that high school or secondary school. As I said, it will be a Venn diagram so that people have to be interested in one of those teacher terms AND one of those high school terms. So the audience will then become that sweet spot of the middle part of the Venn diagram that crosses over. For her, we added a third circle. You may or may not add that third circle in, but for this one, we did. We added a third circle and I did composition because specifically, we were talking about writing. So we pulled in the words 'writing' 'composition' and one other term that I found through the suggestion button, which is amazing. Type in your first term and then hit suggestions, and it was going to come up with a whole list of different keywords. Oh, I think it might've been 'vocabulary' or 'grammar', something along those lines that went with the whole 'composition' and 'writing'. Maybe it was 'author'. So I clicked the suggestion button, and it puts a whole bunch of keywords and then you can pick other ones. So I had the three circles teachers, high school, composition, and then in the middle was that little tiny spot that had those people. This audience ended up being about 1.4 million. So we now had 1.4 million teachers in high school interested also in writing. And those are her perfect people. That was one of the best performing audiences for her, and it did really well.

So that's how you're going to layer the different audiences. Now, again, maybe you're doing moms who are interested in music. Or maybe you’re working with SLPs who specifically work with younger children in that early childhood phase. So just thinking about those big buckets and how you can pull out those different pieces of who your audience really is. That is for any of you teacherpreneur who are targeting classroom teachers.

There is a whole other group of people who are targeting other business owners, teachers, business owners specifically. It is definitely a different game trying to target those audiences. So the way I like to do it is, again, I use that same initial circle of teachers. Then I pull in programs, software, apps, websites, tools that business owners are going to be interested in. So one of my favourites is websites. So I'll do teachers and websites. By that, I mean, I target Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress as a second circle. Then, I get the teachers who are also interested in websites. Another one that I really like using is Pinterest. So I do teachers and Pinterest, but that's really big still. It doesn't narrow it down. A big problem here is that classroom teachers are also interested in Pinterest. So, you need a way to pull up business owners. That's where my third circle comes in for teacher business owners. And I use Facebook business page admins because people who own a business online businesses that you're going to be targeting with your program, your course, or your membership will almost definitely have a Facebook business page that they are the admin of. Classroom teachers probably don't, they might, or probably don't. It is so much more likely that it is a business owner that has a business page and that they're the admin of. So that third circle is a really good way to pull out the business owners by using that Facebook business page admin. I highly recommend it.

If you had a chance to go and download the freebie, again, you can do that at marketscalegrow.com/audiences. It's also linked in the show notes. In that freebie are a couple of brainstorming pages, one for classroom teachers, one for teacher business owners. That is who you target. So if your audience is classroom teachers, use that page. If your audience is fellow business owners, use the other page. It just has a couple of boxes. What I would like for you to do, your kind of podcast homework if you will is set a timer for 5 to 10 minutes and then just write every single word that you can think of that might be an interest of your audience. I will a hundred percent guarantee you that all the words you write on that paper will not be found in the business manager when you're trying to create your audiences. You're going to get frustrated. You're going to get angry because "Facebook, why don't you have this person or this thing?" That's okay. This is just here to give you ideas and give you a bit of direction. So that's your homework.

The other thing I want you to keep in mind is that of these three audience groups, the warm audiences are going to do the best in most cases because these people have interacted with your brand already. They know you, they like you, they trust you. That's especially true for warm audiences like your email list versus an Instagram engagement list, which is still warm. It's definitely warm, but it may not be as warm because you have people who have looked at your profile one time in that one, versus an email list is all people who have opted in and chosen to follow you, chosen to subscribe to you. But those audiences, your warm audiences, really are going to be your best performers in a lot of cases. That's where I suggest you start, is to use those audiences for your ads. It will give you a feeling of success because people will respond best to them, and it will help to build social proof. Then once you got a bit of social proof, you can duplicate the ad and switch out the audiences for your lookalike audiences. Lookalike audiences also tend to do really well, because again, they are a reflection of people who already know, like, and trust you. They have very similar characteristics. So it's just a really great way to reach those new cold audiences and have some more success. And then the third group of audiences that you should be pulling in are those cold audiences. But definitely go in that order, as you're growing and expanding, start with warm, then go to lookalikes, then eventually you can expand to the cold interest based audiences. Those ones are the hardest to get right and they can really flop. So it can be difficult, not going to lie, it can be difficult to really get those cold audiences right, and to really find those Venn diagrams that are really going to work for you and your business and your offer.

Do not give up, take a deep breath and just little tiny baby steps. If something isn't working, you can scratch it and you can create a new audience and you can search for new keywords and you can try again. That is the amazing thing about marketing, is that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but whether it works or doesn't work, you're learning something and you're growing and you're moving your business forward.

If you have any questions about this, then feel free to send me a DM on Instagram. I'm @heyitsjenzaia. I also offer hour long strategy sessions where we can talk through and set up your audiences together on a Zoom call. I would love for you to book one of those and feel confident that your warm, cool, and cold audiences are all set up to amplify what you're doing and for you to find success in your ads. So if you're interested in booking a strategy session with me, then you can head to marketscalegrow.com/book-a-call. That's B O O K A C A L L, all one word, book a call, and find a time that works for you. I also have a promo code that you can enter, the word 'Podcast' and save $50 off of that strategy session, if you're interested. So, head to marketscalegrow.com/bookacall, and I can't wait to chat with you.

Until next time. I'm Jenzaia, and I'm so glad that you hung out with me. This strategy session was a little bit longer than the previous ones, but there was so much information that I wanted to get out for you. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking around, and I will chat with you next Saturday for another strategy session.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. Today was brought to you by Dubsado, my absolute favourite customer management tool. If you're looking to streamline and systematize your service-based business, I highly recommend Dubsado. For 20% off of your first month, head to marketscalegrow.com/dubsado that's D U B S A D O and use the code Jenzaia at checkout. And don't forget to head to our community at marketscalegrow.com/community where you'll find inspiring, ambitious teacherpreneurs who are looking to grow and scale their businesses just like you... See you soon.