Facebook has been the biggest phenomenon on the Internet in the last 5
years. The growth it has achieved worldwide is astounding. With more
than 500 million users and millions of businesses integrating Facebook
functionality into their websites the biggest question businesses are
asking is whether Facebook can be a reliable channel for driving sales
and growth.
Over the past year we have been testing and measuring various Facebook strategies to identify the best method of driving sales through social media. It hasn’t been a simple process but we have identified a Facebook strategy that has produced sales for our clients and ourselves. Here is that strategy…
Optimize Your Facebook Page
Every business can create a Facebook Page that represents them on Facebook. Facebook Pages are critical to achieving optimum results through Facebook because Facebook users are more inclined to interact with them. The first step in the conversion process is to optimize your Facebook Page:
• Create A Non-Fan Landing Page – a ‘Fan’ is a Facebook user that has clicked the ‘Like’ button on your Facebook Page. A non-fan landing page is the first tab a person sees on your Facebook Page before they become a fan. For the entire strategy to work you will need a non-fan landing page that sells the reasons why somebody should become a fan. For an example of this please visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/webprofitsfb
• Create Free Offers Within Your Facebook Page – Facebook allows you to create content that is only accessible to fans of your page. You can be creative with this and create free offers in a similar manner as you would to build up an email database, such as giving away a free report. The major difference is that instead of acquiring an email address you can email market to, you are acquiring a Facebook fan that you can social media market to.
• Create Demographic Specific Tabs – the new Facebook Pages updates rolled out across all pages in March 2011, meaning that Facebook Ads can now be directed to any tab on your Facebook Page (in the past you could only send it to one tab on your Page). By creating tabs that target a message to a specific demographic you can increase the performance of your Facebook Ads.
• Integrate Facebook Apps Into Your Page – North Social has a wide range of apps you can access for only $19 per month, allowing you to add additional tabs to your page to increase interactivity. For example, you can stream your Twitter updates, display your YouTube videos and display your RSS feed. And because these apps allow you to include custom header graphics, you can add banners that promote free offers.
Build Up A Fan Base
Now that you have an optimized Facebook Page you need to start building up your Fan base. One of the reasons we went to such lengths at optimizing your Facebook Page is because it follows the same principles as a high performance website – the better it converts visitors into Fans, the lower the cost-per-fan (CPF) will be and the more fans you will receive as a result of your efforts. Here are the easiest ways to build up you Fan-base:
• Facebook Ads – Facebook advertising is different to Google Adwords, as people on Facebook are not actively searching for what you sell. Facebook advertising is more like banner advertising, where your goal is to get your message in front of people that might be interested in what you sell. With Facebook you can target ads based on location, demographics, likes & interests, and education & workplaces… and any combination of those. Sending ads directly to your Facebook non-fan landing page is one of the best methods of maximizing the performance of your ads.
• Sponsored Stories – Sponsored Stories are Facebook Ads on steroids. They are essentially word-of-mouth advertising. Simply put, a Sponsored Story is an advertisement that displays your latest Facebook Page status update to the friends of your fans. While it may sound simple enough, the power of Sponsored Stories should not be underestimated. Once you have more than 500 fans, you might find that you turn all of your Facebook Ads off and focus your advertising budget on Sponsored Stories, as the cost-per-fan is much lower.
• Website Integration – Facebook has a number of social plugins that allow you to integrate Facebook functionality into your website such as a Like Button, which allows people to share pages on your website with the click of a button, and Like Boxes, which allow people to like your Facebook Page and view its stream directly on your website. Once you have more than 100 Facebook fans, adding a widget that shows the number of Fans you have, including their faces, is a great way to establish credibility with new visitors.
Engage With Your Fans
Engaging your Facebook fans is the key to making social media work for your business – the more you can get your fans to take action, the more profits you will see in the long run. The best way to do this is through the following:
• Add Value Through Status Updates – when a Facebook user becomes a fan of your Facebook Page, they will see your business status updates in their news feed, alongside all the updates from their friends, family and work colleagues. It is therefore critically important that any information you share has a high-value and stands out from the other updates. Ultimately you want them to click the ‘like’ button and share it with their friends.
• Encourage Fans To Post To Your Facebook Page – try to engage with your fans by posting a status update on something of high value, and then asking them what they think. And when they do post something on your page, make sure you reply and add even more value. If you find that certain topics garner more comments than others, then focus on sharing more information related to those topics.
• Don’t Sell! – unless you run an ecommerce store and your non-fan landing page promotes fan-only discounts, the last thing your fans want to hear is a sales pitch. Focus on adding value in all of your status updates. Conversion strategies on Facebook need to be much more subtle and much more strategic…
Convert Fans To Clients
Your ability to convert your Fans into paying clients is, by far, the most difficult component of the strategy because of the delicate nature of social media. For the best results you need a digital strategy that takes somebody who is barely interested in what you sell and converts them into somebody that wants to use your services. Here is our recommended strategy:
1. Free Giveaway – create a high-value free giveaway such as a free report, free video or free software. The key here is to create a digital product that has such high-perceived value that your fans will be compelled to take you up on it by giving you their email address.
2. Landing Page To Sell The Free Offer – you will need a landing page that effectively sells the benefits of the free offer. The landing page should follow best practice direct response principles including a strong headline, a good opening paragraph, strong sales copy, testimonials and call-to-actions.
3. Email Marketing Strategy – when somebody enters their email to download your free giveaway they will be in your email marketing database. You can now start communicating with them directly and be stronger with your sales message. You still need to add value and build the relationship, but email marketing is a sales tool than can move your prospects closer to the sale.
4. High Performance Website – your website can help qualify the prospects that are most interested in your services. Throughout your email marketing you can link to pages on your website where people can request information packs or free consultations from your business. Anybody that takes action on these offers is closer to a sale and can now be entered into your sales process.
5. Sales Strategy – unless you run an ecommerce store where people purchase products online, your sales will be made offline. To maximise your sales you will need a strong sales process that effectively converts prospects into clients.
Whether or not you want to use social media to market your business, you will still need to have a digital strategy to maximize your profits online. Without a digital strategy all of your online efforts will perform at a fraction of what they could be.
Direct Facebook Messages
Facebook provides you with the option to send a direct message to your fans, similar to sending them an email.
Once you have setup your digital strategy, you can then send a direct message to all of your Facebook fans about the free product you have just released, sending them to the landing page that sells the free offer. You can also share the free offer through your Status Updates and even run Facebook Ads directly to that landing page.
You can also send direct messages to your Facebook Fans when you post new articles on your blog, launch new podcasts or release anything else that is ‘free’.
Direct Messages is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal but it must be used with care as you can easily alienate your fans if you use it too much or are too focused on selling.
The Future
Facebook is truly one of the most exciting new avenues for businesses to drive sales and grow. The flexibility and strategies available on Facebook are vast and the opportunities will only increase from here. By looking at how social media fits into the bigger picture of online marketing you can truly understand how to make Facebook profitable for your business.
Alex Cleanthous , Facebook
www.visibilitymagazine.com
Over the past year we have been testing and measuring various Facebook strategies to identify the best method of driving sales through social media. It hasn’t been a simple process but we have identified a Facebook strategy that has produced sales for our clients and ourselves. Here is that strategy…
Optimize Your Facebook Page
Every business can create a Facebook Page that represents them on Facebook. Facebook Pages are critical to achieving optimum results through Facebook because Facebook users are more inclined to interact with them. The first step in the conversion process is to optimize your Facebook Page:
• Create A Non-Fan Landing Page – a ‘Fan’ is a Facebook user that has clicked the ‘Like’ button on your Facebook Page. A non-fan landing page is the first tab a person sees on your Facebook Page before they become a fan. For the entire strategy to work you will need a non-fan landing page that sells the reasons why somebody should become a fan. For an example of this please visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/webprofitsfb
• Create Free Offers Within Your Facebook Page – Facebook allows you to create content that is only accessible to fans of your page. You can be creative with this and create free offers in a similar manner as you would to build up an email database, such as giving away a free report. The major difference is that instead of acquiring an email address you can email market to, you are acquiring a Facebook fan that you can social media market to.
• Create Demographic Specific Tabs – the new Facebook Pages updates rolled out across all pages in March 2011, meaning that Facebook Ads can now be directed to any tab on your Facebook Page (in the past you could only send it to one tab on your Page). By creating tabs that target a message to a specific demographic you can increase the performance of your Facebook Ads.
• Integrate Facebook Apps Into Your Page – North Social has a wide range of apps you can access for only $19 per month, allowing you to add additional tabs to your page to increase interactivity. For example, you can stream your Twitter updates, display your YouTube videos and display your RSS feed. And because these apps allow you to include custom header graphics, you can add banners that promote free offers.
Build Up A Fan Base
Now that you have an optimized Facebook Page you need to start building up your Fan base. One of the reasons we went to such lengths at optimizing your Facebook Page is because it follows the same principles as a high performance website – the better it converts visitors into Fans, the lower the cost-per-fan (CPF) will be and the more fans you will receive as a result of your efforts. Here are the easiest ways to build up you Fan-base:
• Facebook Ads – Facebook advertising is different to Google Adwords, as people on Facebook are not actively searching for what you sell. Facebook advertising is more like banner advertising, where your goal is to get your message in front of people that might be interested in what you sell. With Facebook you can target ads based on location, demographics, likes & interests, and education & workplaces… and any combination of those. Sending ads directly to your Facebook non-fan landing page is one of the best methods of maximizing the performance of your ads.
• Sponsored Stories – Sponsored Stories are Facebook Ads on steroids. They are essentially word-of-mouth advertising. Simply put, a Sponsored Story is an advertisement that displays your latest Facebook Page status update to the friends of your fans. While it may sound simple enough, the power of Sponsored Stories should not be underestimated. Once you have more than 500 fans, you might find that you turn all of your Facebook Ads off and focus your advertising budget on Sponsored Stories, as the cost-per-fan is much lower.
• Website Integration – Facebook has a number of social plugins that allow you to integrate Facebook functionality into your website such as a Like Button, which allows people to share pages on your website with the click of a button, and Like Boxes, which allow people to like your Facebook Page and view its stream directly on your website. Once you have more than 100 Facebook fans, adding a widget that shows the number of Fans you have, including their faces, is a great way to establish credibility with new visitors.
Engage With Your Fans
Engaging your Facebook fans is the key to making social media work for your business – the more you can get your fans to take action, the more profits you will see in the long run. The best way to do this is through the following:
• Add Value Through Status Updates – when a Facebook user becomes a fan of your Facebook Page, they will see your business status updates in their news feed, alongside all the updates from their friends, family and work colleagues. It is therefore critically important that any information you share has a high-value and stands out from the other updates. Ultimately you want them to click the ‘like’ button and share it with their friends.
• Encourage Fans To Post To Your Facebook Page – try to engage with your fans by posting a status update on something of high value, and then asking them what they think. And when they do post something on your page, make sure you reply and add even more value. If you find that certain topics garner more comments than others, then focus on sharing more information related to those topics.
• Don’t Sell! – unless you run an ecommerce store and your non-fan landing page promotes fan-only discounts, the last thing your fans want to hear is a sales pitch. Focus on adding value in all of your status updates. Conversion strategies on Facebook need to be much more subtle and much more strategic…
Convert Fans To Clients
Your ability to convert your Fans into paying clients is, by far, the most difficult component of the strategy because of the delicate nature of social media. For the best results you need a digital strategy that takes somebody who is barely interested in what you sell and converts them into somebody that wants to use your services. Here is our recommended strategy:
1. Free Giveaway – create a high-value free giveaway such as a free report, free video or free software. The key here is to create a digital product that has such high-perceived value that your fans will be compelled to take you up on it by giving you their email address.
2. Landing Page To Sell The Free Offer – you will need a landing page that effectively sells the benefits of the free offer. The landing page should follow best practice direct response principles including a strong headline, a good opening paragraph, strong sales copy, testimonials and call-to-actions.
3. Email Marketing Strategy – when somebody enters their email to download your free giveaway they will be in your email marketing database. You can now start communicating with them directly and be stronger with your sales message. You still need to add value and build the relationship, but email marketing is a sales tool than can move your prospects closer to the sale.
4. High Performance Website – your website can help qualify the prospects that are most interested in your services. Throughout your email marketing you can link to pages on your website where people can request information packs or free consultations from your business. Anybody that takes action on these offers is closer to a sale and can now be entered into your sales process.
5. Sales Strategy – unless you run an ecommerce store where people purchase products online, your sales will be made offline. To maximise your sales you will need a strong sales process that effectively converts prospects into clients.
Whether or not you want to use social media to market your business, you will still need to have a digital strategy to maximize your profits online. Without a digital strategy all of your online efforts will perform at a fraction of what they could be.
Direct Facebook Messages
Facebook provides you with the option to send a direct message to your fans, similar to sending them an email.
Once you have setup your digital strategy, you can then send a direct message to all of your Facebook fans about the free product you have just released, sending them to the landing page that sells the free offer. You can also share the free offer through your Status Updates and even run Facebook Ads directly to that landing page.
You can also send direct messages to your Facebook Fans when you post new articles on your blog, launch new podcasts or release anything else that is ‘free’.
Direct Messages is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal but it must be used with care as you can easily alienate your fans if you use it too much or are too focused on selling.
The Future
Facebook is truly one of the most exciting new avenues for businesses to drive sales and grow. The flexibility and strategies available on Facebook are vast and the opportunities will only increase from here. By looking at how social media fits into the bigger picture of online marketing you can truly understand how to make Facebook profitable for your business.
Alex Cleanthous , Facebook
www.visibilitymagazine.com
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