Emerging Entrepreneur Nick Unsworth: How To Market On Facebook Like A Pro

Like many entrepreneurs, Nick Unsworth has gained his greatest expertise from the times he has failed. Now he’s sharing his hard earned marketing strategies with others in the form of a new ebook, The Book on Facebook Marketing (To Help Set Your Business and Life on Fire) co-authored with fellow Facebook marketing specialist Valerie Shoopman, that is going live on Amazon beginning today.

In the book, Unsworth and Shoopman share their greatest secrets for growing a business through Facebook, but in the initial chapters, Unsworth shares his lessons in entrepreneurship as well.  To say Unsworth’s Facebook marketing skills were hard won would be a vast understatement. Highly motivated to own a business from the time of age six, he was raised by a mother who instilled the confidence in Nick that he could accomplish anything at all if he really tried.

And he really tried, making it big as a network marketer in college. Spurred by the desire to find work that would fulfill his passion and allow him to live a life that he loved, he made a solemn vow to build and sell a successful business by the time he turned 30. Upon the initial success of his network marketing business, he proceeded from his fast beginning to make nearly every early stage mistake in the book. He leased an expensive car; he spent money with abandon on luxuries, and then the parent company he was working for went belly up. Then he jumped into real estate—you guessed it—just in time to experience the mortgage meltdown of 2007.

In a prophetic step, Unsworth’s mother gave him a copy of The Secret in 2008. He was hooked. Now the desire to make the goal of selling a business by the age of 30 had set his psyche on fire. To solidify his commitment, he tattooed a giant cross on his chest, emblazoned with the words “The Secret,” written backwards, so he’d be reminded of his goal every morning as he looked in the mirror.

He innovated a not for profit business, NU Cards, that carried discount deals for 45 regional vendors that folded up like a business card to fit in a wallet or purse. He sold NU cards for $20 and promised $10 in charitable contributions for each. All was going well until he ignored his gut and hired a traditional advertising agency, highly recommended as the only right thing to do for burgeoning business, that recommended he invest in t.v. ads. He spent his hard-earned early revenue to engage the agency, and then agonized as the ads produced a near-zero response. The agency replied that he’d need to continue the campaign longer. Ultimately, he spent $50,000. A single $20 order showed up in the mail.

Defeated, Unsworth prepared to close down his small business. Then an interesting phenomenon occurred from his earlier efforts online. His website was ranking on the first page of Google . The traffic began to pour like a spigot. But the fates were not with him--a large national company with a similar name took note of his high ranking and sued for trademark infringement. In an effort to quell the threat, he took his marketing down, but the traffic continued. What could it mean?

Without no funds left to fight the lawsuit, Unsworth closed the company down, but he knew he was on the verge of a related discovery that was great. He opened up NU Media and began teaching others the things he’d learned about marketing a business online. Within 30 days, he'd signed 5 clients. By 90 days he’d signed 50. Keller Williams signed. BMW came aboard. He provided consulting work for Brian Tracy.

The early lessons blossomed and Unsworth’s strategies for marketing on Facebook, in particular, grew renowned. Along the way, he combined his talents with experts such as Valerie Shoopman, a former Google ad expert who's now a Facebook marketing pro. Shoopman is a technology specialist, with particular talent for converting business strategies into Facebook ads, and skills for using Facebook strategies to connect and engage with consumers in ways that create high business return (such as an example 6 day campaign she describes in the book that produced $61,000).

The new book is available for its first three days free of charge and tells readers how to market on Facebook in detail, expanding on ideas such as the following tips:

1. The Power of Earned Media. There is nothing more powerful in business than word of mouth. Facebook is the ideal environment for information to travel along the paths consumers trust most—the opinions of their families and friends. Facebook efforts work best when the focus stays fun and functional (Facebook contests particularly rock, Unsworth says.) Marketers who lead with a traditional sales pitch invariably fail.
2. How to Narrow Your Niche to Grow Rich. Facebook marketing campaigns succeed when they focus on specific and aligned areas of interest—(thus the concept of “micro targeted” ads). Are you interested in fitness? Sewing? Antique collectible buttons? Don’t try to sell your message to the blue ocean universe on Facebook. Hone in on the customers you’re specifically after with highly targeted activities and ads.
3. Write Your Own Checks With a Webinar Marketing Funnel. Consider beginning your process with a “lead magnet” – an offer of compelling value such as a set of free tips or templates for creating your own Facebook ads, for example. This creates a connection and the beginning of trust. Of the broad base that engages with the lead magnet, test and track the smaller portion who will be interested in a deeper offer—perhaps a free consultation with you, one on one, or they might attend a video series or a live presentation. Now you can determine the activities that produce the highest traction and convert to customers willing to make a purchase the quickest and best. Design and fine-tune your “marketing funnel” from there.
4. Facebook Ad Campaign Success – It’s all in the Flow. According to Shoopman, the “flow” refers to the idea that the online marketing funnel should flow seamlessly from ad to landing page to thank-you to e-mail follow-up and offer. The branding should be congruent at all points of the funnel, and it needs to speak to your ideal target audience at all times, to keep the potential customer feeling comfortable and safe.
5. How to Nail Facebook Ad Creatives. Not surprisingly, the images are the most important components of a successful Facebook ad.Choose your images with extreme care, Shoopman advises, and stick to the rule of 80% image and 20% text in any ad you create.
6. Facebook Conversion Tracking Pixels—The Secret Sauce. Did you realize Facebook ads now include tracking pixels? They’re not yet ideal, Shoopman says, but learning how to use these magic morsels from within the Ad Manager Dashboard make any other option feel like “driving blind” when it comes to planning and tracking the effectiveness of your ads.

There’s much more, of course, but the final chapter of the book pulls the strategies together with a set of case studies. So what’s really possible? Well, in the first example Unsworth and Shoopman present, an ad campaign for Entrepreneur On Fire podcast host John Lee Dumas (I’ve interviewed him before) involved a spend of $1,696 to produce $19,940 in sales. An examination of the Facebook ad pixel tracking breaks the result down further to a total of 20 purchases at $997 per sale. Not bad.

In another example, Facebook campaigns supplied the attendance for Unsworth’s recent conference, IGNITE, at an average cost per sale of $35.82 for participants who were willing to purchase a ticket and attend an in-person 3-day event. (Participants who attended were refunded the $97 ticket cost, but were now strong candidates for an ongoing business relationship after being immersed in the program for an entire 3 days.)

Are you sold on the power of Facebook Marketing yet? Regardless, marketers can connect with Unsworth and Shoopman directly at @NickUnsworth or @ValShoopman. You can also get a copy of their new ebook premiering this morning at Amazon or www.lifeonfire.com.