How to use Facebook Ads for your language school?
Written by Torleif V
When starting out with Facebook Ads it might seem daunting. Which images to use, what should we write in the description, and how much money should we use? All these questions pop up in the head of language schools when first beginning the Facebook Ads-journey. But what all language schools have in common is one thing. How do we get more students to sign up?
I know, you may be thinking: "That is too pricy..." or "It's not something for us.". All of the latter comments are good points to make. When I first started making FB ads I felt the same, I felt like this was too advanced and that it didn't suit me. To be honest, I actually kind of hated it for a while - when I heard about it I just thought: "FB ads, no that's just for tech people.". I just ignored it. But then it came to me, almost all successful schools do this.
The reason successful schools are using the FB ads is that they are willing to invest in their future, and to maximize their profits. The best way to just scale the business through the roof is actually just by doing the work, and using the resources available at the school to send a message to potential students. I will go through 5 excellent tips for making ads like a pro.
1. Using engaging images
The last thing a customer wants is to see some fake stock image of a person. This is a typical sales trick which a lot of language schools are using. To be honest they may work, I mean they look good and its a picture of students learning a language. But it just looks so phoney. Its just another image which is trying to sell something.
So try to use an authentic image of real life students from the school. It might be students outside in the city, or just a person eating ice cream and reading a book. It needs to just catch the customer and tell them: "Join our exciting and FUN school!!!" It needs to just tell the customer that this is a school to meet fun people, and to be active in the city they will speak the language.
The image doesn't have to be too fancy either. It can just be a selfie of students or something simple. As long as the customers can relate the image to their own life and desires.
2. Have a strong message
Now that we have found an amazing image, great! We have gotten a great head start. Now we need to make sure that the description of the image is compelling. Think of the message as a friendly post from someone we know. For example: "What is 1 thing we can't live without... French croissants!" And then show an image of students eating a croissant together by the Eiffel Tower.
If we have a message like this then we are speaking directly to French enthusiasts who know what they're looking for. Sure the message doesn't include anything about the school or language, but the main idea is that the customer that is interested in French, most likely refers croissants to France and they want to have a closer look.
This is just one idea of many surrounding creative ideas to trigger emotions of buyers.
So if you want to write a message in the description, make sure that it sticks to the viewer as if we are reading their mind. Remember that the only reason a customer wants something is 100% because of their personal desires, that's it.
3. Targeting the audience
When finding a new student it is very important to know their background. Are they young people in the age of 20-26 years old? If so, where are they located - and how do we send them a message?
It is wise to do a bit of research on where the students of interest normally come from. Let's say a Spanish student is interested in learning French, but doesn't know English. To grab their attention we need a spanish ad to get their attention.
It's ideal if the ad is written in the language of the viewer. Of course if the customer comes from Netherlands or Scandinavia then we know that they understand English.
When we have specified an audience we need to test the ads on this customer, if the results aren't that great then we can change around some variables and come with a new target audience. To get the best ads we need a LOT of testing, no matter what.
4. Retargeting
When a person have seen the ad for the first time and maybe clicked on it - a natural thing to do is to get distracted, or just maybe be uncertain about the product. Normally it takes a person 5-10 ads until they feel comfortable buying, or exploring more about the offer. This has nothing to do with the ad itself, it has to do with each individual. Therefore we need to resend ads to every viewer.
The great thing about FB-ads is that we can resend the ads to people, and then they can see the ads again so that they have a second chance to maybe buy from us. This is crucial when running ads, because if we just sent cold ads over and over again it will be challenging to get a student on the first try.
With that said we have to make sure that the new ad differs from to first ad. The last thing we want is some comments like: "Not this AGAIN!!!" or, "I HATE the same ads...".
We have to make a follow up ad which just gives them a quick reminder, that we are still here and the offer still stands. All this is done without being too pushy or anything of course.
5. Setting a budget
This is what scares most language schools. How much money do we use on these ads? We don't want to lose all out money! Of course this can be scary at first. I mean we are literally spending money on ads which might/might not work. But it's safer than expected.
To make ads work we need to invest some money. On average €2000-€3000 per month. Now don't flip your table just yet. To use less money than than this is less costly of course, but it doesn't give us enough data to find an ideal ad to use over again. And this volume of money allows us to retarget enough students - to get all the conversions we need to get a good return on investment (ROI).
Sure we could just stick to a budget of €30 per day or something, but this will slowly empty our pockets in the long run, and make us more poor than investing more money.
Conclusion
To sum everything up I made a small conclusion.
1. Using engaging images
We have to make sure that the image doesn't seem like some selling trick. A student can smell an ad miles away and only scrolls further when reading it. We have to add an enlightening image which just speaks to the student we are looking for.2. Have a strong message
Don't be one of those who just say: "Language course - Join Now!" Everyone know that they can join the course and the headline normally includes something regarding the course, so all we need to do is to make an engaging message which makes them read everything.3. Targeting the audience
To find the best fit we need to do some research and narrow our audience. It's better to have add interests which can relate to the language they are learning. For example Salsa -> Spanish,baguette -> France.
4. Retargeting
We shouldn't just give up after a few ads, we have to send new ads to retarget students with new materials, and new messages to not be too repetitive. Since 98% of students don't click on the first ad we have to get the 2% one more time.5. Setting a budget
It's better to go 100% than just 50% when running ads. It's crucial to get all the data we need and to run enough ads to retarget students again in the future!
If you are eager to start advertisement today, and grow your language school right now then you should definitely consider booking a Strategy Session with me below right away. See you soon!