Saturday, February 27, 2010

Target Practice

It’s an early Friday morning...and I find myself taking a train to visit a client in New England. The Acela train whisks me thru the Northeast corridor at 150mph amidst a blanket of white; our first real snowstorm, some 12 inches of the white stuff having fallen so far.

As I sit and gaze out the window, I am also watching my fellow passengers, many older dudes sitting and staring at the pure whiteness of the moment, listening to their Ipods and strumming their air guitars. It is absolutely great to see. Guys buttoned up to the top, their wingtips shining, blue suits glistening and their stainless steel bracelet watches with the black face shining, digging some music and “chillin”. What are they listening to? Maybe its from Lady Gaga or the Black Eyed Peas or the Beach Boys or Bruce Springsteen or ZZTop. Maybe even a little Mozart or John Coltrane. Or Taylor Swift. Who really knows?

Not only are they listening to their music, many are working on their laptops, as am I, talking on the phone and playing solitaire. What a great time we live in! What great communication options we have. We just have to learn how to use the NEW tools or we will get left out in the wood shed with a Remington electric typewriter and no carbon paper!

So with that in mind, I want to pass along a communications tip to help you reach your target audiences with your message VERY efficiently. It’s a Facebook tip. Do you know how to place a facebook ad for your center? If you don’t, please read on. Well, first you need a facebook page for your center. Ok, go to Google, plug in facebook and set up your page. Got it? Cool.

Once you get that done, go back to Google and plug in facebook.com/ads. It will take you to a page where you can absolutely target any demographic group you want in any city you want. Plug in the key words “bowling”, your city or suburb or multiple cities. You can even experiment and plug in league bowling (if that’s your message) or cosmic bowling, if that’s your message. Or whatever message you want. The broader you make the key words, the more eyeballs will see the message. The narrower the target, the fewer eyeballs.

At the bottom of the page you can select married, male female, none of the above or single. Experiment with your target, because after you complete that task, Google will tell you how many facebook people in your city, within your target demographic will see this advertisement. All for $50 a day plus a pay per click (.25 to .75 cents). If it sounds expensive, think again. You are getting a measurable, definable audience that is highly targeted for your message. And you don’t have to do it for a long time. Maybe 5 to 7 days. Maybe 10 days. The beauty of this stuff is that you can test it and change it up…and get results in a heart beat. Once the respondent sees your ad, he or she will click on it and be automatically directed to your “landing page.” Drop me an email or text me @ 516 359 4874 if you need some assistance with setting this page up.

Go for it…and rock on!