I have been tracking when Facebook would start rolling out a News Feed “Facebook Offers” to small local businesses. It looks like today is that day. Before today this program was reserved for only the largest companies active on Facebook.

Finally a Return on Investment for Facebook

Businesses have spent years building their fan counts. However, many have wondered what the actual value of a fan is. Facebook Offers give retailers and other small businesses the first real opportunity to bring new and current customers into their places of business. This is a huge step forward for businesses. The Offers are easy to reclaim and very viral in the way that they spread.

These offers are also optimized for mobile devices and operate quite similarly to the web implementation. After claiming an Offer the customer either need to print out the offer or open it on their mobile phone. A customer with a smart phone must hand their phone to the person behind the counter to confirm the Offer.

The offers are free to create and Facebook states that “each offer will only reach a limited number of people.” So for a small business with 500 likes it is not clear how many Fans it will reach, but for those that do see the Offer, it could not be easier for customers to claim the offer.

Offer goes directly to customer's email

Customers do not need to visit an additional website. They appear in your existing News Feed. You like an Offer, you hit ‘Get Offer’ and details of how to redeem your Offer are sent automatically to your email address.

Offers has huge potential to drive better interaction between customers and the businesses they like, unlike Groupon that advertises any deal that is placed with it on that particular day.

Creating Facebook Offers is simple.  I would recommend that you make the Offer substantial.  Think about what Offer would bring you to the store.  Providing something for Free has a higher probability to bring that customer to your business.

Is Offers released to you

How to Create Facebook Offers

First take a look at your Fan Page and see if Facebook has rolled out Offers to you.

Where you post and add Photos/Videos you will see a new option – Offer, Event…  “Click Offer

Easy to create

• Type a strong headline for your Offer, ex. “Free inner tube with flat fix”
• Upload a photo for your Offer that will stand out in thumbnail size
• Set an expiration date by clicking today’s date and clicking a different day in the future
• Add terms and conditions of your Offer
• Click Preview
• Review what your Offer will look like, then click Post

 

 Below is an example of the email that is sent to your customer

Sent to your Mailbox

 

Are you going to check it out?  Do you think that you can finally get a real ROI for your investment in Facebook?

Email me at edc@edcallender.com with your questions