The Facebook Summit 2020 held today discussed ideas on the future of marketing, stories of business resiliency, and insights from Facebook’s experts.
Among the sessions was a panel discussion about small business marketing in the new norm. The speakers were Dibyo Haldar, Small Business Group Director of Facebook for APAC, and Jomari Haboc, Founder of Pickup Sticks Franchise.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, small businesses have had to struggle to operate offline as physical shops were closed and there was trouble with transportation. Nevertheless, many businesses managed to get back on track with the help of online marketing. Both speakers agreed data is key to success, especially for small scale businesses.
Dibyo addressed that many businesses got into digitalisation as there was an increase in social media advertising, totalling 140 million users. One such business is Pickup Sticks, a food franchise brand offering authentic Filipino street-food.
According to Jomari, before the pandemic, only 10 percent were online consumers and in June, only 25 percent of pre-Covid sales were made. Fortunately, with Facebook campaigns, 100 percent of pre-Covid sales was achieved in August.
“Running the ads enabled us to analyse customer data and allowed efficient use of budget,” Jomari expressed.
He emphasised the importance of applying the right techniques and strategies to identify what suits the business. “Make use of AdManager to identify the demographics of customers and have consistency to remain professional,” he added.
Dibyo highlighted that there will not be a friction between big scale businesses and small scale businesses because there is no specific rate card for ads on Facebook. “Depending on the supply and demand, business owners can have a target audience based on the demographics which will suit their customer database,” he explained.
Both speakers stressed that business owners need to be authentic on their page or profile and identify what works best for them and build from there. They further urged business owners to have linked messaging facilities on their page.
“Chatbots can be implemented for the first few stages as it will be helpful to manage volume, but to close sales, real-time human interaction would be the best,” Dibyo concluded.
