Motorcycle towing company and Facebook ads ?
Allow me to share with you how I helped them in doubling their bookings by investing in Facebook ads. Thus, doubling their monthly revenue.
With their permission, I will bare it all. I believe if you read till the end of the blog post, you will gain insights on how you can do it for your own business.
Allow me to introduce Hisyam and Syaiful. They are young partners in Orange Towing Services. They have been running the business since late 2015.
Somewhere in June 2016, they decided to approach me to find out how can they increase their number of bookings. Will paid Facebook ads help ?
WHAT WERE THEIR CONCERNS ?
1. Their main concern is the number of bookings.
- They were averaging 5 bookings per day. That is roughly 150 bikes per month. To make the business sustainable and profitable, they had to increase the number of bookings per day.
2. Affordability ?
- They were afraid that Facebook ads will be expensive. Back in June 2015, they were stretching thin with their expenses.
3. Same old content.
- Another concern of theirs were the content creation.
Back then, they were posting once every 2 days. 90% of the time, they were posting about the motorcycles photos they towed. They realized that it was too boring for, even, themselves to upload and share.
MY RECOMMENDATIONS
When they first came, they were struggling. I could not guarantee immediate success BUT within the span of 6 months, I am confident that they can double their daily bookings.
1. CONSISTENCY
- I advised them to be consistent with their posting. Keep to a schedule. Starts with 2 posts a month. And allow Facebook ads do the heavy lifting.
2. PROMOTE STORIES
- Being a towing service provider, they could not provide a tangible item for customers to see, hold and touch. We need to promote stories.
- Stories about them. Stories about their services. Stories about towing and so forth.
3. HEARTFELT HASHTAG
- It may sounds cliche but I suggested that they should be starting to use and capitalize #wearebikerstoo.
- The idea here is to lower RESISTANCE of their target audience.
4. FACEBOOK VIDEO ADS
- Why ? Since they are reluctant to invest MORE in Facebook Ads and Facebook Video Ads is the best in going forward.
- Why ? To maximize their allocated budget.
- Do you know Video Ads can reach out to additional 30% (avg) audience for the same budget allocated for Image ad ?
- Meaning, for example, $100 = 10 000 audience size for a photo based ad. For Video Ad, it can be like $100 = 13 000 audience size.
5. MAINTAINING THE CURRENT MARKETING CHANNELS
- I was asking them how they got their bookings currently. They explained to me that it was through word of mouth.
- I probed further asking them how they got to know you. They shared that they always attend coffee session with bikers and workshop owners. They distributed their name cards to bike shops. And also through fellow bike towing service providers.
- Personally, I advised them to build on these relationships further on these marketing channels. Build rapport with them.
6. TRACKING
- Start tracking. It is important and paramount to track your efforts so that you can make necessary changes or tweaks to your game plan.
- One of the changes that I implement was data reporting. Every time I request for updates, I would like to receive precise data NOT "we got a lot more", "it was good, many calls". We have to go a little bit more precise.
7. CONGRUENCY
- In order to provide a good customers' experience, our efforts, online and offline, has to be congruent.
- Meaning, if we put up a smiling face online, we have to smile offline. If we are very helpful online, we extend that offline. Anything that we put up online, it has to be congruent, real and no "hanky-panky" stuff.
THE GAME PLAN
So, we embarked on a 6 months journey from Aug 2016 - Feb 2017. The game plan was :-
1. Two posts monthly - Organically.
2. $50.00 of Facebook Ad budget monthly.
3. To increase the bookings by at least 50% at 3 months mark.
4. By end of 6 months, to increase the bookings by at least 20%
IF YOU ARE STILL READING,
I just want to say, YOU ARE AWESOME...
The first ad ran in Sep 2016 - The idea was to target a specific audience and that is riders working in Jurong Island.
We created a video ad using only handphone.
It performed very well. They were getting a lot of enquiries.
We are looking at 15 calls a day. Previously, they were averaging 10 calls a day. BUT, their average bookings per day still remains at 5 bikes a day EXCEPT for 3 days in Sep 216 where they managed to get 9 bookings a day.
THE SECOND AD
The second ad was a bit let down. We wanted to share that we provide overseas towing. BUT, it did not performed as we expected.
We did a Post Engagement ad.
THE THIRD AD
For Nov and Dec 2016, we did not ran any ads. So in January 2017, we run two ads concurrently.
THE FORTH AD
The 2nd Facebook ad in January 2017 was a video ad.
THE FIFTH AD
The fifth ad, we were trying to promote our other services instead. We were promoting battery change services for Super 4 bike owners only.
This time, the ad performed very well even though it wasn't a video ad.
I ran their ad for only 14 days per month. The main REASON why I am doing this is to prevent ad fatigue.
THE OUTCOME
Within 6 months, the Facebook page likes grew by 27%. These page likes are quality page likes. WHY ?
I did not run any page likes campaign. This is a good indication that people are following and liking the Facebook page due to content exposure. They have their reasons why they are following them.
Here is the tricky part. Let me break it down for you.
Engagement measures a Facebook post’s performance. It’s the sum of all possible actions you can take within a post.
This includes reactions, sharing and comments. BUT if there are any comments that we replied, our replies will not form part of the engagement metrics.
Consumption measure all possible actions that you can take within the post structure only.
Example, photo view and video play. If you include a link in your copy writing, a link click is considered as a consumption. Consumption will not measure reactions, comments and shares.
These engagements and consumption are the reactions of Facebook ad investment.
This metrics are more direct. It measure how much reach can we achieve with the allocated budget.
Increased bookings did not happen immediately. It is only 2 months later, we managed to see some changes.
CONCLUSION
With CONSISTENCY, we are able to maximize our Facebook marketing efforts. And yield results.
1. From almost 15 posts a month, down to only 2 posts a month. At times, they did extra posts.
2. They increased their advertising by 4 times within 5 months.
3. Now, they are expanding their marketing channels to other platforms.
