Growing your list, for the brands who are a little too “hip” for white papers, reports, and webinars… 

We’ve got your back.

We’ve put together a go-to list for unique, out-of-the-box ideas for attracting prospects and turning them into leads using Facebook Ads.

Don’t get me wrong. Webinars, case studies, and reports all work well as lead magnets. But you won’t find those on this list.

This collection is for brands who want to spice things up!

We’ve seen all of these ideas work for our clients (plus, they’re all a lot of fun).

But before we jump in, let’s cover a few basic Facebook ad principles to help you get the best results for growing your list from whichever idea you put into action.

First, it’s important to understand that warm audiences convert better than cold. So, when asking for something from your audience (even an email address or other personal information), you’ll find that those who have interacted with you before will be more likely to exchange information or money for something they perceive as valuable than someone who has never heard of your brand before.

For that reason, you can think of these ideas as a middle milestone for your prospects.

Use these ideas to move colder prospects closer to a sale by inviting them to engage with your brand at a higher level… one that requires more commitment on their part.

They’ll need to exchange some information for the offering, but these offerings also might require some time on their part to really implement. So, they’ll typically work better with audiences who have had some exposure to your brand already.

And they’ll help cold prospects become warm prospects, so you can more easily market to them in the future when you’re ready to ask for a monetary exchange for a product or service.

Ok, back to the ideas!

The following are 5 unique ideas for growing your list using Facebook Ads.

Growing Your List - Timely Checklists: 

If you’re ever at a loss for what to promote, just take a look at the calendar.

Seasons, holidays and industry events could all serve as inspiration for a unique lead magnet or promotion.

We’ve seen good results using seasonal, holiday or other “timely” checklists.

Is there something your prospects should do around back to school or Halloween time? Can you help them get prepared for an upcoming industry conference?

When the season, holiday or event is on your prospects mind, it’s easier to enter the conversation with a helpful checklist (and it’s easier to get your prospects to share since the event is already on their mind).

Here’s an example of a holiday specific checklist that will help in growing your list. In this instance, warm audiences performed better, resulting in 329 leads at a total of $3.86 per lead. 

Note: remember to test different audiences, images and copy! All of the campaigns in the previous example made the same offer, but some performed significantly better than others.

Plans

Can you create an experience for your audience and help them walk through a challenge, each step of the way?

Consider putting together a digital kit to help them achieve a small goal.

Try meal plans, lesson plans or planning pages.

These kits could include a plan to follow for a day, a week or a month. It’s a good way to help the audience engage deeply with your brand and develop habits that they’ll want to continue (with your help).

Giveaways

Giveaways can get people talking about your brand and sharing the opportunity with their friends.

This is also a good way to develop a targeted list of people who are interested in a specific product, which means you can market that product to them again later on using Facebook’s retargeting options to show your ads to people who visited the giveaway page!

Ask the Expert

Are there questions that your audience asks over and over? Do they feel awkward asking in a public forum or on your social media pages?

Ask The Expert campaigns send prospects to Messenger where they get to ask you anything they want.

This is a nice way to engage with prospects on a personal level, but you can also create a process for responding where you’re sending prospects to blog posts, downloads or other goodies to get them closer to becoming leads.

Challenges

Why not create a challenge to inspire your audience to take action and reach a goal?

Run the challenge inside their inbox or right inside a Facebook group.

Make it fun with videos or live streams. Invite everyone to interact inside the group for added engagement!

So there you go…

5 unique ideas for growing your list using Facebook ads. 

Which one do you think your audience will love the most?

In the meantime, why not find out what the “7 biggest mistakes you’re making with your Facebook Ads are”, and how to fix them: