How to Sell Facebook Marketing Services

You sell Facebook marketing services. That may include placing ads on Facebook, managing content, or both. There is no doubt that you are an expert in the Facebook platform, but your sales process may be a bit haphazard. It may be a bit unpredictable. You may not have a process at all.

So, how should you sell your Facebook marketing services? First, you must know the experience level of your potential client. Second, set your pricing according to the business problem your prospective client is facing. Third, develop a sales process that allows your prospective client to make the decision quickly and confidently.

This video and the article below will give you a streamlined baseline for how to think about selling your services more effectively. Let’s get started.

Here is how you can keep track of your client's posts on Facebook --> Download: Facebook Content Tracker Spreadsheet

How Do I Sell Facebook Marketing Services?

Let's start at the beginning: What is the most effective sales strategy for Facebook marketing services? How should you be thinking?

I think there are two important points here.

The first is to remember that the person who buys your Facebook marketing services is a person. That person could be of any age, gender, or social status, but at the end of the day, it is a person trying to make a buying decision. Any information you offer is designed to help this person make that buying decision as quickly and as confidently as possible.
The second major point is to remember that your best client is doing digital marketing already. So there's some level of web presence that exists, and they're trying to optimize that web presence.

So to think about that for a second, your best client might be:

in the content business, like the Wall Street Journal, making thousands on storing thousands of articles on their site every day.
in the e-commerce business, like Nike, selling thousands of skews every single day.
in the software business, offering different kinds of apps and downloads and software tools.
running a membership site, with the majority of their offering, the majority of their interaction with clients, behind a paywall.

Your best client may operate in one of these models or some hybrid of these models. But the point is that your best client already has an existing web presence, and they want you to help them better optimize, to get even more value from that presence.

Know What Clients Need

What do these clients need? What might they be looking to buy? Let's put them in three categories here:

Beginner. The beginning client already has an existing client base, but they may not have a presence on Facebook. Or it may be that they have a Facebook page but haven’t integrated any marketing into it. They’re ready to “put ourselves out there.” They want to use Facebook to push beyond their normal community, their normal physical location, their established organic opportunities.
So for them a Facebook presence means expanded reach. The beginning client knows that they don't have what they need, and they're willing to make the initial investment. It becomes your job to quantify what that core investment needs to be and what they can expect from that initial investment of time, energy, and money.
Intermediate. The intermediate person has most likely made the initial investment, but their Facebook presence needs improving. They’ve done some Facebook marketing, and it more or less works, but not as well as it should. They have some things set up, but they’re probably broken and need to be fixed. This is probably some version of a break/fix that needs to happen in their world.
Someone needs to look at their Facebook page, look at the marketing setup, and fix what’s breaking so it happens more efficiently and is more dependable. Do you know what I mean? The intermediate client more or less is looking for a break/fix solution.
Advanced. The advanced client is looking for speed. They already have a Facebook marketing setup. It works and they know it works, but now they want it to happen faster. And they have metrics in place to measure that speed. So they start using terms like ROI (return on investment) or ROAS (return on ad spend).

They're comfortable spending money, and they know they may have to make a significant investment, but there's a way that they measure the investment when it comes back. And so you've got to be willing to look at their situation, see what has the most opportunity for return on it, make the improvement and measure the return.

Don’t Make This Classic Mistake!

Now here's a really important point that I have to call out here. It's a classic mistake that we make when we sell digital marketing related services. It's important to sell to the sold, not to the stubborn. What you want to be able to do is sell to people who are already doing digital marketing.

The mistake that we make as experts is that we see the opportunity—if a company would just do this, if a client would just do that, if a client would just advertise on Facebook—and so we begin to “evangelize” things to clients. The trouble is that the person you’re selling to hasn't already understood for themselves that an opportunity or efficiency is present.

If you're selling to stubborn people, that means you have to convince them that marketing on Facebook is a good idea. And if you have to convince them, that's heavy lifting on your part, and if you have to convince them, then they don't pay the premium for it.

You want people who are already sold on the idea that Facebook marketing is a good idea, that Facebook marketing investments are profitable investments, and that if they invest with you, they can see a compounded return on their effort. You want to sell the people who are already sold. Be careful of becoming an “evangelist” and trying to sell to people who are stubborn.

How Should I Price My Facebook Marketing Services?

The basic framing of hourly work, project-based work, and retainer-based work is always sound and will always be appropriate. You can choose from those three, as they relate to your clientele and as they relate to your company.

What is the average cost of Facebook ad marketing services? Let's look at hourly pricing here, with some help from this website. Scroll down to the U.S.-only rates. You can see that the vast majority of firms and consultants charge between $50 and $300 per hour.

For general social media management, this site shows us that experienced freelancers and consultants typically charge from $50/hour to $120/hour or more. Retainer-based social media management goes for anywhere from $399 to upwards of $5,000 per month.

Those numbers represent quite a spread. You can sell for more than that if you choose. You can sell for less than that if you choose. But you get an idea of where the sweet spot is for how the pricing of services is typically structured. If you think about it on a per-hour basis, it'll fit somewhere along this scale, typically between $50 and $300 an hour for ad services and $50 to $120+ for social media management.

When to Charge Higher Rates

Now let's talk about why that price range might exist. If you want to charge more for your services, make the prices go up, what do you have to do?

Scope: You’ve got to be willing to take on more scope. These could be simpler projects, just done on a larger scale. So instead of creating one or two social media ads per week for this business, you’re creating five or six. Instead of managing just a Facebook page, maybe you are managing a company’s Instagram and Twitter as well. Instead of posting on each site once a day, you’re posting three or four times a day. Larger scope allows you to drive the price up.
Complexity: If you want to drive the price up, you’ve got to take on more complexity. Maybe instead of just posting ads and content, you’re creating or sourcing it as well. Maybe you're managing fewer social media sites or posting less frequently, but your content is largely informational and requires some research. Or in addition to managing a company’s social media, you’re also responsible for responding to comments and inquiries. All of these things make your services more complex, and that allows you to turn the price up.
Opportunity: Another element that allows you to charge more for your prices is opportunity. That could be a matter of revenue, or it can be a matter of cost. So if there's an opportunity in the marketplace that your client is aware of and your Facebook marketing executions can help them acquire that opportunity, well, that's worth revenue to them. That's worth more to them.

Likewise, if the client knows that poor Facebook marketing, or none at all, may be costing them money or putting them at a marketplace disadvantage, they're aware of that cost. Your saving them from that cost, again, allows you to turn the price up.

So if you want to charge more for your services, be at the high end of the band, these are the kinds of things you need to deal with.

When to Charge Lower Rates

Now, what kinds of things drive the price down? If the price is cheaper, why might that be the case?

Existing sites: If your client already has a Facebook page, if they already have social media in place, then you aren’t doing the work of setting up and launching those sites. That allows you to charge less.
Existing content: If your client is providing the ads and/or content to you, the projects are easier to execute. So there's no need for a premium to be paid if they're already paying it in the form of existing ads and content.
Existing organization: If your client has an existing organization, meaning people, that also makes a difference. If they have people in place to create the content, or to manage it once you’ve set it up, if they have workflows in place to do that work already, then they don't need you to do those things. That helps keep the price a bit more manageable.

As you think about working with clients and finding a price point that makes sense, all of these options need to be considered, because at the end of the day you're trying to solve the problem facing your client. If your client has challenges that drive the price up, so be it. If your client has efficiency that keeps the price more moderate, so be it. What's most important is that your pricing reflects the scenario your client is experiencing.

Here is how you can keep track of your client's posts on Facebook --> Download: Facebook Content Tracker Spreadsheet

What Should My Facebook Marketing Sales Process Look Like?

If you're looking for a mechanical step-by-step process to sell your Facebook marketing services, what might that look like? Well, the basic process begins by identifying the right people. From there you make contact, that contact leads to a conversation, and that conversation becomes a closed sale. This is pretty much how the process works.

Now the mistake we sometimes make is having the wrong thought process as we move through these steps. Let's look at how you should be thinking as you take each step.

Identification: When you identify people in the marketplace that you may be able to serve, what you're looking for are problems you can solve. You’re looking for people and business with an existing web presence that isn’t 100% where it should be; something could be improved. They need a Facebook site, or their Facebook site isn’t what it could be, or their Facebook ads aren’t what they could be. There's something about their scenario that reflects a problem to you.
Contact: So when you reach out to make contact, the offer that you're making here is an offer to have a conversation. They need a better social media presence, and you’re asking, “Hey, would you like to talk about it?” That's all you're trying to get done. You're not trying to sell in this contact. You're just trying to see if a conversation makes sense.
Conversation: When you talk to that person, you are confirming that the social media issue you think exists actually does exist. If you're correct, then you can move forward. If not, then you should try to understand what's really going on so you can propose the next course of action. This conversation is about confirming, not forcing their hand to move forward as a client.
Sale: When they decide to become a client, when they decide to close, then the work begins immediately. You don't introduce any other bureaucracy; just get started solving the problem you found in the first place.

Now, timeout for a brief sanity check here. I know that what you're looking at here looks really, really simple. We under-appreciate how simple and how elegant the sales process can be.

The number one mistake that we make is trying to force people down this chain of events. We're so focused on making our sale, hitting our numbers, getting that closed deal, that we don't leave enough space for the person on the other side to move down this process with us. Yes, this process can be quite simple, but it's really important to navigate it in a professional way so that both parties can be comfortable with the conclusion that's made in the end.

How Do I Get Facebook Marketing Clients?

So if you're excited, you're focused and you want to start this process right now, what do you do? I recommend that you go with tried, true, and proven approaches.

Go with friends and family. There are people in your network who know who you are, who respect what you do, and it makes sense for you to reach out to friends and family first to get your initial point of momentum.
Use your own social media. You have people who follow you, who have connected with you, who are in your online networks, and it just makes sense to leverage those networks to build on your initial momentum.
Use freelance networks. There are various networks out there designed to put people in front of you who are ready to make the buying decision. You can bid on that work and get your initial opportunities from platforms like Upwork and others.

Are there nuances? Yes. Are there complexities? There certainly can be. But whatever process you choose to go forward with, what’s important is the essential insight that you're using your process to help this person make a buying decision. The easier you make the decision for this person, the faster they can say, “Yes,” and work can begin.

What Should My Facebook Marketing Business Model Look Like?

Now, you're a Facebook expert. You know that there are many different ways to use the platform. There are free methods, there are paid methods, and in fact, Facebook is adding to or changing its functionality every single day. You're in that world. You understand all of those nuances, but your challenge is in packaging your expertise in such a way where other clients are excited to buy it. So how do you do that?

Business Model: Facebook Advertising

One way of leveraging the Facebook platform is through paid advertisements. If you have expertise in utilizing Facebook to do paid advertising, how might that service work? Let's think about it going backwards.

Set measurable objectives. We know what the client wants at the end of the day: they want paid advertisements running on their behalf and they want someone else to figure it out and do it. You need to get them here as quickly as possible in a way that's comfortable for them. You want to be able to say, “We're here, we're doing paid ads.”
Now, at the end of the day, you know you've got to be measuring something, because it can't be a metric-less process. You're clear on what metrics to measure.

Let's keep going backwards. You have to set up the account. You tell the client, “I have to set up the account and the ads and make sure that everything is functioning well so that when you start measuring things you can actually trust the measurements.”

Know what the client wants. Still going backwards, you can't set up the account until you know what material you actually want to put into the platform. What ads, what copy, what landing page? That's all got to be set up first.
Learn how the client works. One step prior to that, you need to understand the client's core sales process. If they're using the paid ads to get new clients, if they actually want money at the end of this process, then you have to be clear on their existing sales process, especially if it combines online and offline. If they're running ads where someone places a phone call to buy, you need to make sure you can track all that.

That's an example of what it might look like from a paid advertising perspective. Now let's look at it from an organic perspective.

Business Model: Facebook Content Management

If a client isn’t doing paid ads, how would you help them manage their social media presence? Typically you're managing their Facebook page.

Understand the goal. What does your client want? They want someone else to manage their Facebook page without them having to worry about it or fumble with it. Your job is to create a service that gets them to that desired end goal.

Now, you have to make sure that at the end of the day you are measuring something. It can't just be, "Well, we're on your page every day." What does that mean? Well, they’re looking at engagement metrics—views, clicks, signups, and so on. Whatever their metrics are, you need to make sure that you understand them and you're speaking the same language.

Discuss the content. We know what we're measuring, but you can't measure the page unless you are scheduling content. There's got to be content that happens every day, every week, every month, every 20 minutes, whatever. Take another step back: who's creating the content? Who's creating the copy, the links, and the images that need to be done?
Establish the voice and tone. One step prior to that, in order to create relevant content you have to make sure that you understand the client's voice and tone. How do they want to communicate? How are they currently communicating on the platform?

Structure Your Facebook Services so Your Client Can Quickly See the Value

Again, there's more than one way to measure all this out, to do this. You may have incremental steps in between. All of that's fine. The important point here is that before you even start working, the client knows the services you offer will lead them to exactly where they want to be. Before they sign on, before they say yes, they can step back and say, “Oh, I see. That’s how we get to where I want to be. I'm in.”

Then you know on your end that you are organized to deliver on this step and this step and this step, and you and the client can sit down together and look at these numbers and make sure that they're flowing the way that you want them to.

On the other hand, if the client says yes because you laid it out cute on some webpage, and then you are disorganized in how you deliver this, nobody wins. You become overwhelmed, they become disappointed, and you lose your momentum as a company.

This idea of productizing and building out your services in this path works on two ends. On one end, you can clearly describe it to your clients so they know what they're buying, and on the other end, your company knows how to deliver it. That’s excellence you can repeat over and over again.