Transcription
In the last 12 months, I've helped over 325 separate home service and contracting businesses set up working Facebook and Instagram ads using this exact video strategy. So, in this video, I'm going to go over the exact framework that you need to follow to make a working and high converting Facebook and Instagram video ad and the exact script that accomplishes the following things. It detracts tire kickers. It attracts high-paying, high-income, high-net worth customers. And then also trains your pixel, your ad algorithm on Facebook to actually show your ads to the proper people and not show them to people who happen to have a smartphone who live under a bridge.
So, we're going to go over the exact formula of the creative. And what I mean by creative in this context is the creative is the exact things that come out of your mouth on the video and the structure that they come out of your mouth to accomplish this. So, if this is your first time on the channel, your first time hearing me yap, you probably want to know why should I listen to this guy? I own two separate home service businesses. One of mine is a temporary lighting business that scaled up to $400,000 a month in peak season, and the other one is a permanent lighting business that we just spun off. I previously owned a junk removal business that I scaled to low six figures as well. And then now I own the Home Service Accelerator which at the time of filming this video has over 325 active members that we bring into the fold and we show them how to run their own ad campaigns on Facebook, Meta, optimize their Google Maps things all without using an agency.
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So to structure a Facebook and Instagram video ad properly, you have to understand the concept of stopping the scroll. What we mean by that is when you're running an ad on Instagram and Facebook, they're not looking for you yet. What you have to do is you have to stop the scroll because they're looking at sports highlights, they're looking at dog videos, they're looking at cooking videos, and then your ad pops up. And so, what most people miss is your ad has to be good enough to grab their attention and stop the scroll. And the best way to stop the scroll for a local service-based business is to call out the location they live in in the first words out of your mouth.
So step one of a high-converting Facebook and Instagram video ad is always going to be calling out the location first. And so when I'm making an ad, most of the ads when I'm starting out a campaign from scratch, the first words out of my mouth are, "What's up, Scottsdale, Arizona homeowners? My name is Steve." What that does psychologically to the viewer is really clear. When they're scrolling through and they're seeing a bunch of stuff that's nationwide, whatever else, and then they see someone say that they're in their neighborhood and in their neck of the woods, it immediately piques their interest. And so, for example, if you're watching this and you get an ad on something on YouTube or Instagram or anything else and it says, "What's up, Philadelphia homeowners?" That's not going to resonate with you at all if you don't live in Philadelphia. But if I call out the specific neighborhood you live in, it's actually going to resonate with you a lot harder. And so, when you do that in the beginning, all we're trying to do with that location hook is just grab their attention and stop them from scrolling for an extra 3 to 4 seconds. If you can get them to stay on your ad for 3 to 4 seconds, they'll start to actually consume the rest of it. And that is what we want. The other side about it that's really important is notice the verbiage. It's calling out homeowners specifically. It doesn't mean it's going to kick out everybody who's not a homeowner, but it does make the homeowner psychologically feel seen more. And so that first line, that hook, for lack of a better term, being location, location, location, and homeowner, you're going to hone in on them first.
So step two and three are really simple. They're kind of lumped into one, but the breakdown is pretty much uniform across the board. The next thing out of your mouth is going to be who you are, what you do, and then a little bit of why you're different. So, you'll see me say, "My name is Steve. I'm the owner of Valley Premier Lighting." So, now that I've introduced myself as the human being and attached myself to the business, the person goes, "Okay, business in my neighborhood, human being that lives in my community that is a hungry entrepreneur." That's the subconscious story we're trying to tell through the ad. And so we're trying to one, hone in on the homeowner, hone in on the location, but then at the same time also humanize ourselves in the process. So in this context, it's, "What's up Scottsdale homeowners. My name is Steve Hunaker. I'm the owner of Valley Premier Lighting." And then I'm going right into what we do and why we're different. You guys know your businesses better than I do. In my case, we always go to, "We've been in business for 5 years. We're one of the only companies in the valley that does just lighting, just permanent lighting, just Christmas lighting. We're not a landscaping business that tags this on on the side. We're not a window cleaning business that does this as a side hustle. All we do is lighting." That's like one of the examples of what we say in our ads that works really well.
So, now that you've kind of started your ad, basically, you've called out the location first. You've explained who you are, what you do, and why you're different. Ideally, in less than 20 or 30 seconds, now you can go into some form of expiring value proposition at the end or an offer. And the offer is super important because that's what actually gets people to convert. The offer can be a discount. The offer can be an expiring promo. The offer can be anything like that. And so the offer specifically is really good at actually converting. When I mean converting, a conversion in this context is did they give me their name, email, phone number, everything else and ask for a quote? That would be considered a conversion. And so what we're trying to do with the offer is get them to take action now. We're not just trying to give brand awareness. We're trying to get them to take action now and come into our ecosystem and let our sales process actually take it from there.
And so you can experiment with a lot of different offers. One of the things that we've seen, and we've tested this extensively in both of my brands, is people react to a round dollar amount more than they react to percentages. Now, at my scale of ads, we still test both. Sometimes we do 20% off, 30% off, sometimes we do $300 off, $350 off, whatever else. What's really interesting about this specifically when you're crafting your offer or your discount program is we actually ran identical ads last Christmas season. One was a 15% off offer and one was $150 off. The very interesting thing is knowing what our average ticket is, which is in the high 3000s, low 4000s, 15% off is actually a bigger discount, but the one that performed better on all of our A/B testing and our ads was the $150 off promo coupon. And there's something to be said about someone can conceptualize a flat dollar amount more than they conceptualize a percentage off. And we've seen that in our businesses and in a lot of businesses in Home Service Accelerators. So, let's say you're a plumber or an electrician. Instead of saying you get 10% off your next repair, you get 10% off a consult or something like that, you're better off either A) doing a free consultation or B) looping in some form of dollar amount promo to get them to take action.
So, now we can kind of put it all together and the last step is the CTA or the call to action. The call to action is how you specifically get them to take action on the ad. You want to make it idiot-proof. So when they're in their Instagram app, when they're in their Facebook app, when they're on the computer, whatever else, there's going to be a button that they have to click to opt into your ad. And so the call to action specifically coaches them through actually taking action. So the last part is I will always say, "Click get quote now to get started. Click get quote now to activate your coupon and we'll send it to you."
So now let's just put it all together, right? I can just do it off the top of my head. It's not going to be perfect, but just for the sake of this video, this is how easy it can be. So let's say that I have a roofing company. This is how I would make an ad for Hunaker's Roofing. "What's up, Scottsdale, Arizona homeowners. My name is Steve. I'm the owner of Hunaker Roofing Company. A few things that make us different." And then I would go into three, four, five different things. "We're locally owned. All of our employees are background checked. Blah blah blah blah blah." And then I would say, "Until the end of this month, the next 10 people that click this learn more button right here will get a free roofing inspection on their home. Zero charge, zero upsells, zero anything. We will inspect your entire roof front and back and make sure that you're set up for monsoon season or anything else. So click learn more right now to get started." That's it. That's the ad.
So it doesn't matter what trade you're doing. This formula works really well. And so then when it comes to like, oh, but what do I do here? What do I do here? This is why I'm incessant about all home service businesses taking before and after photos, taking time-lapse videos with their iPhone, buying the $35 Amazon tripod or anything like that to put their iPhone on when they're working. Because all you have to do is take these things, go into CapCut, and then while you're talking, you can just flash different examples on the screen. You can flash little six-second clips of what's called like B-roll or something like that on the ad. And so now instead of just a boring talking head the whole time, you look like you've actually produced an ad. But the entire thing has been constructed with an iPhone, an Amazon lapel mic, a tripod, and then just edited on CapCut.
And so the point of this video is like, yes, there's other formulas to run ads. I do different things all the time because I'm an experienced ad buyer now. So I do different things where I experiment with six-second videos that just get way higher engagement and they cost less because they're shorter. I experiment sometimes with still images and test them. But the age-old rule across the board is the video ads convert really well. And I think that there's something to be said about the video ads converting because they're the only thing that actually allows you to build brand while actually getting people to take action. People don't remember still images that well. But if they're constantly seeing your face and your brand and your logo and you talking in a longer form of time, a longer format, you can actually start building brand while actually generating leads as well.
And so the best example I can give you on this is in my Christmas light business, we had a lead come in last year and it was coded in our system that it came through Google. And so my sales guys like to know that. My sales guy went out there and the customer was like, "Oh yeah, I thought you guys' Facebook ads were so funny." And my sales guy was like, "Oh, I thought you, in our system it said you came from Google. I didn't, I didn't know you came from Facebook." And she's like, "Oh yeah, I think all of your ads are so funny." And so what happened was this is a perfect example of why video in my opinion trumps just still image, even though people can still get conversions on still image. She saw multiple videos. She saw multiple videos explaining who we are, what we do, why we're different, all that jazz. And then she did what a lot of educated buyers do and she Googled us, right? And then she looked at our Google page and she saw the reviews, she saw everything else and then she took action. And so what ended up happening is that ended up being a $30,000 residential job. I've documented on this channel before, but when it's coded in our system, it came from Google. But what it actually came from was Facebook based on the anecdotal evidence that she gave us.
So my point of this is it's not just about chasing conversions. It's about chasing quality and conversions. And so what we find is video ads might have a slightly higher cost per lead, but when you actually look at your cost per given quote or cost per appointment booked, they'll actually end up being cheaper. So, what happens sometimes is I see people who have a business that does less than $10,000 a month brag about how their cost per lead on messaging conversations is $4 a messaging convo. But if I go in, they're getting ghosted by nine out of 10 messaging convos that even get started. So, sure, you're getting a $4 cost per messaging conversation started, but you're not even talking to nine out of 10 of these people. So, what that math actually is is if it's taking you 10 leads that cost $4 each to get a conversation going, your cost per actual qualified lead is $40. And then maybe you're only actually getting out and doing a quote on one out of every two or three of those. So then your cost per quote is actually $80 or $120 to actually do what moves the business forward.
And so when you guys are doing these video ads, I highly recommend that you do two or three different variations. Stand in different spots, make your script a little bit different, and then you run these two or three and Facebook will determine the winner for you because it'll determine it by who interacts to what video the best. And so, typically when we launch three new creatives, one of the new creatives will quickly convert better. And so then Facebook is literally telling us with the algorithm that that is the better ad. And so then Facebook will start automatically putting more budget into that ad and then drip the other ads on top of that to try to get people to take action. What I mean by drip other ones is it might show them the banger first and if it doesn't get a conversion but the person watched like 30 seconds of the video, the next day Facebook will then try the new creative and then it'll try a different creative there. And so most of our campaigns, one of the ads will get 80% of the budget and then the other two will be put into like kind of nurture mode where it starts to nurture people along in that second and third ad. And so that's why you will die if you just watch this video and you just do one video ad and don't do anything else. I highly recommend doing two or three at any time. But if you follow this format and you follow the structure of call out the location, who you are, what you do, why you're different, give them an expiring value proposition at the end, and then give them a strong call to action. "Click get quote now to get started." That will convert over time.
And the last thing I want to note on here, this formula is for converting cold traffic ads. I'm not saying you have to make all of your organic content with this structure and have it highly edited and everything else. This is a direct response advertising video formula. So content is still king. And so I don't want you watching this and now every single video on your Instagram, every single video on your Facebook, every single whatever is following the same structure. This is specifically for cold traffic. The Instagram stories that are you on site that are just a quick video selfie, whatever else. You still need to have those too, but you want to supplement paid traffic like this because paid traffic will also buy you a following as you scale it up.
So, we started the Valley Premier Lighting Instagram like two or three months ago and we sprinted up to like 400 something local followers. So, because we're running paid ads through that Instagram and through that Facebook, what happens is we get direct responses, so leads from the cold traffic, but then we also because we're spending a hundred something dollars a day sometimes, we're also buying followers because people will see those ads, but they're so humanizing that they'll be like, "Oh, this is kind of a cool company. I'll follow them." And then, you know, whatever else. And then eventually when you get to like a more advanced state, you can start retargeting your followers with ads. You can start doing lookalike audiences based on people who interact with your leads and different things like that. But for the basics of video ad creation, this is the formula that has worked tried and true across the board.
So if you want more information about this or you want us to script two or three ads for you, help you set up your first Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns yourself, that's what we do at Home Service Accelerator. We essentially are the anti-agency group where 325 other home service business owners have joined and we teach you how to set up and run campaigns yourself on Facebook. We optimize your Google Business page. We teach you the formulas on how to actually scale your signage campaigns, your referral campaigns, and all that. And then essentially use the things that got my actual businesses scaled up to $400,000 a month in our busy season. And we turn around and give those to you. So, that would be your best bet if you want to actually crack Facebook ads efficiently, or if you're a business that's doing less than $15,000 a month. I recommend either A) watching these videos for free, going over to my Instagram and watching me there, or we have a starter school that's $97 a month, and that's the one that's like the real basics. But if you're doing over $15,000 a month, and you want to scale ads, I recommend just going in the Pro group.
So, if you're watching this video and you try it yourself, send me them on Instagram. I want to see it. So, go on Instagram. It's @steve_hunaker. Send me the examples of some of your ads. I'd love to take a look. So, thanks so much for watching.