Do you have to build FB "likes" before you can start selling? Is there any other way?

Hi Warriors!

I have been running a like campaign on my Fan Page and I have been getting decent results. This should have been something I started last year, so I am way behind. However, I am trying to see if there are any strategies to advertising and converting non-fans with promoted posts. And here's why:

I am aware that when trying to sell on Facebook, fans convert better than non-fans. Only thing is, it will take quite some time to build up to a decent number of fans before I can start selling (I'm an indie film producer).

So I tested some promoted post with a video link and the result were outstanding. I got a 10% CTR, close to 500 plays, 19 shares, my CPC dropped down to about 2 cents and I had about 118 visits to my website all on a $10 test. I promoted using Facebook's custom lookalike audience.

However, I got very, very few conversions from it.

When I set up my "like" campaign, I had an average 2.5% CTR and of those, I had roughly a 4-5% conversion rate (I asked for email addresses). However, with the video ads - I had a 2% conversion rate and less that 1% the 2nd time but extremely high engagement and website traffic. I read that low conversion to non-fans is pretty much the norm.

I read a case study where someone else decided to focus on promoting their video instead of fan acquisition ads and they saw amazing results, however, they were a larger company.

Has anyone else ever tried promoted posts and had success of selling without doing the "like" campaign first? If so, mind sharing some strategy tips?