Spent $500 on Fb Ads and it did not work

1st year countertop business LLC. I have questions on marketing, SEO....

Been in the stone countertop business for about 7 years now. Started off as a salesman, but since I was 1099 I figured I'd open up my own LLC and just sub the company I used to work for, the fact that I built up the book of business myself, no leads no salary just commission. All the risk was already there and I proved to myself I could do it with out the security blanket of a salary.

In April I finally got my LLC, and it has been a great year, my business is on google reviews, I have a website and instagram, fb and tiktok but the online presence is still not there. I dabbed a bit with fb ads and market place and wasted about $500 in a month with no return.

I'm curious about seo and marketing but don't know where to begin as there are so many options, Idk who is legit who isnt. Im mostly looking for a one stop shop, any recommendations?

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/18tbsou/1st_year_countertop_business_llc_i_have_questions/

A response to a countertop business marketing question on reddit

The issue that you have is the marketing part..

Marketing is the tracking and analysis of how you advertising your business, figuring out what is driving your customer and tracking costs. Once you find a formula that works you then look to scale it.

"I dabbed a bit with fb ads and market place"

This first $500 you spent you learned that what you are doing is not working so you now have some very valuable information.

Step back : Do a competitive analysis. Look at your local market competitors and compare them in a spreadsheet. You then use this to define your competitive advantage and to develop your message. Then you use this message to drive customer's that align with your message. This provides the highest possible closing ratio when they match.

You also need to look at the intent of the Audience.

Social media users have different intent than a user on a search engine. certain "traffic " users have different "intent" The purpose of advertising on these various platforms differ and how you engage a customer on each of them are different as well.

"I'm curious about seo "

SEO is great and takes a lot of work , constant monitoring and adjustments. This will take and experienced pro 3-6 months; if its faster than this they "cheated" and it won't last.

.. realizing I could go on forever with this reply..

Do the competitive analysis ... Find your lane (message) that drives your target customer ... Don't put all your eggs in 1 basket ... Fb, Marketplace, SEO, SEM, PPC, Places, RM... no one of these alone are the answer ..

They all are the answer in their own way.

We provide Competitive analysis and proven strategies that we have implemented since 2008 for marketing Custom Countertops online. The strategies that we deploy online are then deployed in traditional media settings to solidify the message.

We find that once we have a competitive advantage and a strategy we test the strategy in market to define ad cost to sale. Until we find the ad cost to sale that works for the business it can't scale. Once we have found it then we start to scale the exposure to the message and monitor the sales funnel.

We track your teams ability to convert leads to sales and help address issues. Example lets say we start driving sales but your execution is fumbling ( cant hit timelines and dates) resulting in bad reviews and now your reputation is crap and the message is tainted.

Marketing a countertop business is more than just buying ads on facebook.