“I am already engaged in social media marketing but it’s not leading sales”
“I want to strengthen my client base via social media. Help me!”
“it’s all about LIKES and FOLLOWING”
People are inclined to see the instant result of everything. The same is the case with social media marketing. No one can deny the importance of social media nowadays. It is important, but, honestly, you have 200 other tasks to complete every day. If you are using social media platforms for marketing, your likes may be increasing, but it is hard to justify the work if it’s not generating the required sales. It is just not only about likes and following, it's about generating leads, building customers' hearts, and finally making them buy services from you.
Running a successful social media marketing is not as simple as it seems to be. Most the people start but it never actually led them to increased sales. It is a lot of work — engaging in Facebook groups, researching the right hashtags, finding unique images, creating the latest content, and responding to comments
Here are some ways to incorporate into your SM marketing strategy
Remember that people visit social media to relax during a break. Most of them are just used to scrolling up and up to see what others are doing. If you can get people to stay and watch your product video or visit your business page then I think you are doing right.
1. Carefully planned and user-generated content
If the content is king, then conversion is queen -John Munsell
Content derives audience. Simply putting up content on a daily or weekly basis does not do you a good unless and until it serves what the visitors want from you. Take an example of a clothing store, posting pictures of items with prices isn’t attractive to customers rather you can offer them our new ‘deals’ relevant to the stores. As an example, we could offer a 10% off all cardigans accompanied by our new ‘free-shipping-on-all-orders’ program. Give holiday-themed deals. Run contests. Introduce new products. The best opportunity for direct selling on social media happens if your business sells everyday products and services that people need.
2. Plan/ schedule the content
Here are a few questions for you to answer.
- Which of your social networks sends the highest leads?
- Which are your best posts?
- What are the best times for posting updates?
- What are your follower demographics (age and location)?
Answering these questions will certainly push you to make engaging content for your audience. If they see your offer at the right time, they’ll be more likely to respond.
3. Use content to draw people to your business website
Every single page on your website can become the basis for a social media post. You can share an update of your blog, share customers' feedback/testimonials on your website, pick a product or service from the website and make a catchy post on it, can highlight deals and coupons applicable. Make content that brings visitors to your website and offers them helpful content. Every page of your website should offer something to your target audience — solutions to a problem, tips and strategies, video testimonials, contest drawings, a chance to get to know you and see what makes you different, and helpful information like your shipping policy or membership options.
4. Be sure not to miss posts on business-related events
Advertise webinars and conferences relative to your business and be sure to participate in them. This builds your credibility as a business and gives a more professional look to social media.
5. Trade resources for email addresses
Following a business on social media is pretty easy — and so is unfollowing. Your customers haven’t made much of a commitment by following or clicking a post on social media. There’s a large gap between following a business and buying from them.
Offer something like a special discount, brochure, magazine, or new arrival list something people will give you their email address to get. Once you have the email address, keep in touch via email or customer service. Having their email address, which lets you continually market to and engage with leads in a focused way. With Follow-Ups, you can do all the things most email platforms enable you to do — track open and click rates, segment your email list into smaller groups, and schedule emails in advance.
6. Website optimization
Social media is not an online buying platform, it's about selling your idea and bringing people to your business website. You should offer lead magnets on your website as well as on social media. Your website should be designed specifically for your target audience, not for the general public.
The key to an effective lead magnet is that the website should be easy to navigate, clear, and focus on customers' needs. Broken links and unnecessary clattering, and paid advertisements should be avoided.
Offer them FAQs and show them reviews and testimonials. This builds credibility as a business.
7. Have empathy with your audience
Figure out how to deliver answers that meet those needs and you’ll win over potential customers. Not all your answers have to be directly related to your products! Also, you don’t need to be always doing sales, present yourself as a problem solver and the one adding value to peoples’ lives.
People buy from businesses they know, like, and trust. They buy from welcome guests.
8. Offer content that is platform-specific
Product images on Instagram and business announcements on Twitter and Facebook. Job postings for LinkedIn. You need to craft content for every platform differently.
You can follow up using phone, email, text, direct mail, or Facebook Messenger. Connect with leads and customers by email.
Remember one thing always - people don’t open social media planning to shop; they browse for other reasons. This is true of everyone, even your most loyal followers. Your hardest task is not getting their attention, but keeping it long enough for them to consider doing something they weren’t planning to do when they logged in.
How Unilakes can help?
With Unilakes, start converting customers into loyal customers and start converting your new visitors into customers. Starting from an online presence we design a beautiful and user-friendly professional-looking website for your business and with a carefully planned social media marketing strategy to 2x your presence and sales.
Courtesy: www.woocommerce.com/blog
