As a business owner, I’m always keen to learn from experts in their field, especially when it comes to digital marketing. Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris London, a Facebook ads expert and founder of 22:22 Marketing, on my podcast “Many Hats of Business”. Chris shared invaluable insights on digital marketing success, and I’m excited to share these gems with you.
Watch the full episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/AE2jd0BvUl0
Listen to the full episode on podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/many-hats-of-business/episodes/010-Facebook-ads-expert-Chris-London-spills-the-beans-e2lumi5
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Many Hats of Business
00:55 Meet Chris London: From Driving Instructor to Marketing Expert
02:13 The Evolution of a Driving School Business
04:00 Transition to Online Courses and Marketing
05:34 Scaling Up and Rebranding to 22:22 Marketing
08:54 The Importance of Organic Content and Paid Ads
13:23 The Power of Retargeting and Data-Driven Marketing
20:23 Leveraging Organic Traffic for Better Ad ROI
25:21 Realizing You’re Out of Touch with New Trends
25:36 The Power of Organic Content on TikTok
26:46 The Importance of Keyword Research
27:32 Competing in a Crowded Market
29:22 The Value of Blogging and Paid Ads
31:03 Diversifying Your Marketing Channels
34:58 The Benefits of Rebranding
47:17 Balancing Business and Personal Life
50:08 Learning from Adversity
50:26 Book Recommendation: They Ask, You Answer
52:40 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
The Evolution of a Facebook Ads Expert
Chris’s journey to becoming a Facebook ads expert is a testament to the power of adaptability in business. He started as a driving instructor in 2010, eventually growing his business to multiple locations. “We started taking on instructors and took on instructors in Leicester, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, West Brom and into Lincolnshire as well,” Chris recalls.
However, it was his foray into online courses that truly set him on the path to digital marketing expertise. Chris created an online driving theory course, which became the catalyst for his digital marketing journey.
“I self-taught myself Facebook ads and Facebook advertising to sell it,” Chris explains. “The plan was always only ever to do a couple of hundred pounds a month just to give me an extra day off as a driving instructor. But it really took off.”
The success of his online course was remarkable. “We’ve done up to now just over 16,000 course sales for the driving theory workshop,” Chris shares. This success led him to step away from being a driving instructor and focus on digital marketing full-time.
Chris branches out
As his expertise grew, Chris began helping other driving instructors with their social media marketing. This eventually expanded to other industries. “Can you help my friend next door who’s a builder, was the next one. And then there was a mortgage advisor. Can you help them?” Chris recalls. “And I thought, there’s a bigger market for this. We can do, we don’t need to know the industry inside out. We know how to do the marketing for it.”
Today, as a Facebook ads expert, Chris helps businesses across various sectors improve their online presence and marketing strategies through his agency, 22:22 Marketing.
Key Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to pivot your business based on unexpected successes. Your expertise in one area can often be applied to help others in different industries.
The Power of Organic Content
While Chris is known as a Facebook ads expert, he emphasises the importance of organic content in a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. He shared a recent success story about a blog post:
“We had started blogging other stuff more regularly as well. But it seems to have just spiked in January, and we’ve probably been getting about 1,300 impressions a day on that blog post now.”
This success highlights the long-term benefits of consistent, quality content creation. The blog post in question was about how long a theory certificate lasts, a topic that initially seemed too simple to write about extensively. However, by answering a common question thoroughly, Chris created a valuable resource that continues to drive traffic.
“And if you think the people who are searching that are learner drivers, or parents of learner drivers, so they’re pretty much our audience,” Chris points out. This demonstrates the power of creating content that directly addresses your target audience’s needs and questions.
Chris emphasises the cost-effectiveness of blogging compared to paid advertising: “You write it once, it’s done. Paid ads, we can get out to a volume of people pretty quickly, but you’ve got to be tracking it, checking it. A blog, you can write it once, and it’s done.”
He adds, “All that blog cost me was an hour, maybe, of my time. That’s it, it’s done now, one and a half, well, 1,300 people a day for the last three months.”
Key Takeaway: Don’t neglect organic content in favour of paid advertising. A balanced approach using both strategies can yield the best results.
Facebook Ads Expert Tips for Success
As a Facebook ads expert, Chris shared several valuable insights for businesses looking to improve their digital marketing:
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket: Chris emphasises the importance of diversifying your marketing channels. He recalls a time when Facebook experienced a major outage: “When it went down, I think I was out for a long, a long time compared to a lot of people. Most got it back that evening, I was out for about two and a half days, which was a nightmare for trying to manage clients work because I couldn’t get in.”
This experience reinforced the importance of having multiple marketing channels. “You’d never put your eggs all in one basket because you just set yourself up for a fall if that happens,” Chris warns.
Further Tips for success
- Continuously optimise your ads: Even if your ads are performing well, there’s always room for improvement. Chris shared an example where changing just one sentence halved the cost per conversion: “We were getting a conversion for about 3.50 and I just changed the first sentence. The graphics still the same, the rest of the copy was the same, changed the first sentence and it cut the cost per conversion to half. It was like 1.50 and it was one sentence.”
- Use retargeting effectively: Implement Facebook pixel on your website to retarget visitors with relevant ads. Chris explains, “If they’ve got a Facebook pixel on that website, they can drag that information back into Facebook and show you adverts.”
- Adapt your strategy to your audience: Chris notes that different platforms attract different demographics. For example, while parents might engage more on Facebook, younger audiences are increasingly moving to platforms like TikTok. “We tend to find that Facebook, we get a lot of the traffic, and people who are my son, my daughter is struggling to pass their theory test, you know, and then, and it’s the parent who’s, who’s messaging us, whereas TikTok was the younger audience. Although the demographic on TikTok is getting older as well.”
- Balance paid and organic content: Use paid ads to amplify your organic content rather than replace it entirely. Chris advises, “Paid ads shouldn’t be there to replace organic content. It actually should be there to amplify the organic content.”
Key Takeaway: Successful digital marketing requires a multi-faceted approach and constant optimisation.
The Importance of Consistency in Marketing
As a Facebook ads expert, Chris emphasises the crucial role of consistency in marketing efforts. “Consistency is the thing I rattle on about all the time with regards to marketing in general,” he states. This applies to all aspects of marketing, from blogging and social media posting to checking analytics.
To maintain consistency even when motivation wanes, Chris suggests:
- Create a content bank: “Have a little backup bank of content on the days you are motivated for the days when you’re not,” Chris advises. He shares his own experience: “I went to a stage when I was doing some of the TikTok videos and stuff like that. I’m going to do three videos a day. Short videos and then and I’m going to do it over the weekends and it’ll be fine… And then it’d be the Saturday and you’d be relaxed and you think I don’t want to go off and record this video. So now we do it on the days where I’m motivated.”
- Repurpose old content: “Don’t be afraid to reuse some of your old content,” Chris suggests. “There’s days where you know, I haven’t got time to write something new. So we’ll find something we posted a year ago that’s still relevant now.”
- Treat your own business as a client: Chris shares how he ensures consistent marketing for his own business: “My team would class us as a client. So we are a client of ours. So we have, you know, the lady that posts the content app for the clients, she will post out for me twice a day, every single day.”
Key Takeaway: Consistency is crucial for marketing success. Implement systems to ensure regular content output, even when you’re not feeling motivated.
Balancing Business and Personal Life
As a Facebook ads expert and business owner, Chris emphasises the importance of maintaining work-life balance. He structures his work week around his family commitments, working longer hours on days without his children and finishing early on days he needs to pick them up from school.
“I can pick them up from school on the days that I have them, because I can be flexible,” Chris explains. “So I tend to top heavy the days when I haven’t got them, so I’ll work longer days, so I’ll work it into the evening, but then, on the days when I have got them, you know, I finish at half one.”
This flexibility is one of the main benefits of running your own business, but it requires conscious effort to maintain. Chris warns against letting your business control your life, sharing his own experience of being constantly glued to his phone when his online course first took off.
“I would just spend all day, all evening answering messages until they were all clear,” Chris recalls. “It was the first thing I did, you know, when I woke up in the morning before getting out of bed, it was the last thing I did before I went to bed.”
Chris learned from this experience and now maintains better boundaries between work and personal life. He advises other business owners to be mindful of this balance and to structure their business in a way that supports their desired lifestyle.
Key Takeaway: Set boundaries and structure your business to support your desired lifestyle, not dominate it.
Recommended Reading for Aspiring Digital Marketers
Chris highly recommends the book “They Ask, You Answer” by Marcus Sheridan. This book aligns closely with Chris’s approach to content creation and blogging. The core principle is to pay attention to the questions your audience asks and create content that directly answers these questions.
“When somebody asks you a question, jot it down, that’s a blog, that’s a post,” Chris explains. “Because you get questions all the time… All those times when people ask me those questions, it’s jot it down, jot it down, right, there’s my post for the next day.”
This approach not only provides valuable content for your audience but also positions you as an expert in your field. Chris shares that the author, Marcus Sheridan, used this approach to grow his swimming pool business into a multi-million dollar company.
Conclusion: Lessons from a Facebook Ads Expert
Chris London’s journey from driving instructor to Facebook ads expert offers valuable lessons for all business owners. His success demonstrates the power of adaptability, consistency, and a balanced approach to digital marketing.
By combining organic content creation with strategic paid advertising, maintaining consistency in your marketing efforts, and always looking for ways to optimise and improve, you can create a robust digital marketing strategy that drives business growth.
Remember, becoming a Facebook ads expert or mastering any aspect of digital marketing is a journey. It requires continuous learning, testing, and adaptation. But with persistence and the right strategies, you can achieve significant success in your digital marketing efforts.
Chris’s story also highlights the importance of being open to new opportunities and pivoting your business when necessary. What started as a side project to earn some extra income turned into a successful online course and eventually led to a thriving digital marketing agency.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your digital marketing to the next level, these insights from a Facebook ads expert can help guide your strategy and improve your results. Remember to stay consistent, diversify your approaches, and always be ready to adapt to changes in the digital landscape.
Most importantly, don’t forget to maintain a balance between your business goals and personal life. As Chris’s experience shows, it’s possible to build a successful business while still prioritising family and personal time. With the right strategies and mindset, you can achieve both professional success and personal fulfilment.
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