Are You Utilizing Social Media as a Sales Funnel
Companies love to boast about how many likes, shares and comments they get on their social media platforms. When all is said and done what has that really done for their business?
If (let’s say) Facebook was to be shut down today, where would all your followers go? I always tell companies that you need to have a way to talk to a user besides commenting or direct messaging back and forth. That is where a sales funnel comes into play.
What is your sales funnel?
As you sit in your weekly meeting to go over the goals for 2018, the increase revenue discussion starts. How often do these questions come up: “How does our sales process look? Where are we marketing? Why is it not working?”
If you sit there and constantly hear these questions, then you should be thinking to yourself what does our sales funnel even look like? Are we wanting to always find new customers, or are we using our current customers to help attract new ones?
I want you to take one thing out of this post and it is that you do both. Find new customers and use your current customer to help attract new ones. That is why social media is important to growing your funnel.
”If (let’s say) Facebook was to be shut down today, where would all your followers go? I always tell companies that you need to have a way to talk to a user besides commenting or direct messaging back and forth. That is where a sales funnel comes into play.
Where do you start?
When thinking about how to get a user into a sales funnel, think about how you would want to be treated. It is not always about selling, but about giving valuable information to make a user want more
Content on social media is the first step to get a potential customer into your sales funnel. This is why clearly defining your voice is so important. You need to make sure that the user you are talking to will want to keep coming back for more. If you are marketing to C-levels then your tone, content and image need to reflect that demographic.
Once you have a user engaged with your content then this is your first chance to get them into your sales funnel. You MUST make sure that there is a clear CTA (call to action). The call to action, at first, should not be selling the user anything. More importantly, it should be giving them something for free that is valuable. Now, I am not saying that you should give them a free product, or discount your service. The freebie needs to be something that the user will find valuable.
If you are a hair product company, you should have the CTA be a downloadable pdf on steps to create a unique look. In real estate, then your CTA should be a downloadable pdf about your top 10 favorites in a particular area that you are selling to.
When the user goes to download these pdf’s this is your chance to get their information. You want to make sure that they give you their first and last name and email address. Voila you have just put a user from social media into your sales funnel.
Now What?
Now that you have given your freebie out and received contact information, you start a automated email marketing campaign.
You emails, as many of us experience, can not be annoying! You want to continue to give value, while planting a revenue stream into them, as well.
Let’s go back to the hair product company that gave away a downloadable pdf on steps to create a unique look. The follow-up email needs to ask for the user to post a picture on social media with a fun hashtag on how they did creating the look. In the email, you will also want to have an easy way for the user to purchase the products you discussed.
If the user does not purchase in that email, a week later you will want to send a follow-up email that nudges them to purchase, but also does not make them opt-out.
There are many ways to utilize social media as a sales funnel. If you have any questions, or comments feel free to write them below! I look forward to hearing from you.