So you’ve got a super cool unique product that makes people stop scrolling and say “Wow I need this in my life!” No?
You’re saying you’re also not a trendy fashion brand with a gazillion followers all eagerly waiting, card in hand, for you to release the next season’s collection of outfits?
You’re not even a travel company using jaw dropping images to massage people’s longing for sun, sea, sand, relaxation, luxury or adventure?
Oh social media isn’t for you then, you might as well forget about it… is the mindset of many.
Or you’ve tried it and it ‘didn’t work’… so that must mean it just doesn’t work, period.
Aside from the obvious benefits of awareness, customer and prospect relationship building, brand and all the indirect conversions you’ll inherently acquire from being active on social media, let’s just focus on the single metric of conversions.
Question: HOW and WHEN did you try to push your sales message at your prospects?
If you don’t have a unique cool product or operate in a socially commercial market (like fashion) then how and when you ask for the order is crucial
What you have to remember with most social media networks (with exceptions such as Pinterest) is that people are not there to buy. They are there for different reasons depending on the platform.
For example Facebook folks are generally there to catch up with friends and discover and consume content, Instagram to get inspiration from images and bitesize videos, Twitter for conversations…
So with this in mind, if someone is scrolling the newsfeed on their phone and your ad interrupts them by popping up unannounced asking them to buy some paint… is it any wonder it didn’t do too well on the sales front?
For many businesses and brands, to drive sales and revenue from social media requires an alternative approach than the usual ‘in your face’ methods.
We’ll get into the alternative approach in just a second but first a fundamental yet common mistake…
If Your Prospects Don’t Convert From A Mobile Device Then Don’t Ask Them For The Order On That Device
Just to get a more obvious one out of the way first. Desktop vs mobile. Mobile by far has the highest share when it comes to social media.
When you are sharing content and updates with your prospects, you definitely want to include mobile to reach more of your target market.
When it comes to asking for the order, if your prospects don’t convert on a mobile device you have two choices:
- Stop asking for the order when they are using their mobile to access the social network
- Use conversion optimisation to improve your website conversions from mobile (so they might convert from this device)
You can often choose which device to include or exclude whenever you create an ad. If your ad is a direct response ad then choose to only show it to people using the social network from a desktop, laptop or maybe tablet. Sure you’ll reach less people but the people you do reach are more likely to buy.
Often your main goal with social media marketing needs to be: Get them OFF the social media platform and ON to a platform you OWN before asking for the order
You don’t own the social network and you often have to pay just to reach your own audience with a post. What’s more is that specific audience buying behaviour in relation to your product, might be that they just don’t really buy direct from a social ad.
One approach if this is the case, is to use the social platform to get in front of the audience and then get them off the social network and on to your owned platform… email.
Email has 100% reach (they will all get the email if it doesn’t get filtered by spam walls) and doesn’t cost you money each time you want to reach your list of prospects. You OWN the platform.
People are also more used to buying stuff from email offers. They are more open to purchase requests.
They might check the email on their phone and if they don’t buy (they are more receptive to buying remember), it is still there in their inbox waiting for them to see again when they are on a desktop (if this is the customer buying behaviour for your site and product).
You can also send as many follow up emails as you like and reach 100% of your list again (or the ones who didn’t buy from your last email) at no cost.
You can also upload your email list to Google and some social media networks (e.g. Facebook) and show them targeted ads asking them to buy.
People often have to see your ad a number of times before they will take action. Reaching them with multiple emails and ads on Google and social media networks is a great way to ensure you are reaching them with the right message across multiple platforms and devices.
So the customer journey might look something like this:
- Customer sees your piece of content on social media and clicks the link
- They have a good experience and gain from your content so when they see another post on social media, offering them a lot more high quality information, they click the link again and get taken to a landing page
- The landing page expands on the post they just clicked and explains they can access this in exchange for an email so they opt in (they had one or more really good experiences with your content prior to this so why wouldn’t they? They now know you and are starting to trust you can deliver what they need)
- They experience your gated content that they had to opt in to access and get a lot of value from it. They trust you even more
- They now know your brand and product and you have access to them via an owned platform where they are more receptive to offers. Your content and gated content that they opted in for, helps to extract the prospects that are potentially interested in your offer so you are only showing your offer to the right people at the right time
The actual funnel and journey will depend on what you are trying to sell. If your product is expensive and/or complicated then you will likely need a lot more steps and nurturing. If you are trying to sell low cost or no brainer items then to get them on your email list might be something as simple as an exclusive discount code.
If a prospect is on your email list, you can also sell to them again and again and again and sell lots of different products and services to them also. Once again, you OWN the channel.
Takeaway:
- You use social media to get the prospect
- You then follow up with them by email or multiple channels to sell your offer to them
- You sell to them over and over again and generate a healthy lifetime value from the prospect that you acquired (probably for a very low cost per acquisition) from social media.
See the bigger picture!