Successful Social Media Sales
How Social Media can Help Your Business Earn More Profit
Making money with your social media campaigns takes much time and effort. It takes time to connect to customers and make them interested to buy what you’re offering. People are more empowered to make buying decisions these days, due to the abundance of information present in the Internet and other media. It’s not about salespersons making pitches anymore; it’s more about understanding the customers’ needs. Once you make customers see how their needs can be met with your goods, then the potential to achieve a sale increases.
Sales should come after customers. If businesses require their staff to approach customers with only the aim of making a sale, it will turn them off and make them unwilling to talk anymore. The key here is to engage customers and make them your first priority. Take note of their needs and help them make the right choice that will fit their requirements. This will endear them to your business and make them loyal customers.
With this approach in mind, you can start on implementing your marketing strategy. Here are some tips you can do to increase your customer base:
1. Build relationships.
Respond to a tweet addressed to you. Participate in comment threads. Greet fans and followers on their birthdays. Post something that you know would capture the interest of your readers, be it a funny meme, an intriguing news article or an educational how-to video. These actions will help you be closer to your customers and make them more receptive to your marketing content. Once you’ve captured their interest, it will be easier to turn attention to your products and services.
2. Join networking events.
People who meet in person are closer than those who meet only in the Internet. Make new contacts in networking events and other business dealings. Keep in touch with everyone using social media sites. This would make more meaningful exchanges and make talk about your merchandise more comfortable and personal.
3. Keep your social media training up to date.
Social media is a dynamic field, with new information coming in every day. A professional who trained in social media a year ago might get lost with the many changes and developments happening online. It pays to stay current and informed about the latest developments to avoid being left behind. Keeping up with the latest trends will also help you build up your social networking profiles more. This would also help cultivate additional interest in your company.
4. Undertake social media research and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies.
Keep track of the analytics of your social networking pages. After you’ve gathered and understood the data about your best prospects, then you can start launching your CRM campaigns. Customize those campaigns according to each prospect’s needs to ensure quality results that fit their needs. This will help you convert them to loyal customers you can count on to recommend your products and services.
5. Monitor the competition.
It is wiser to keep track of what the competition is doing to attract new customers. Make the value your offer exceed theirs. You don’t have to spend more to improve your existing goods; just enough to make it more attractive, presentation-wise. .If their methods provide better return than yours, study how they work and think of ways to improve upon their strategy. This will help you think of techniques to trump and exceed their success.
6. Offer freebies and price cuts.
People get excited over free items they can get. Make it more fun for your customers to visit your website. Create a free newsletter mailed straight to their inbox or offer products with discounted prices. This would help drive more traffic on your social pages and website. People who love your products will recommend them to others, which will increase your client base. This method will also show who your strongest leads are, and help you find the people whom you can concentrate your marketing campaigns.
7. Experiment with different types of content.
There are many kinds of content available for marketing purposes. Other than websites and blogs, you can also provide white papers, reports, webinars, webcasts, newsletters and emails. Entrepreneurs should study which types of content are truly preferred by customers instead of providing those which they think that customers want. In the picture below, Lori Wizdo demonstrates how businesses provide content, which is not aligned with customer requirements in “The Lead-Nurturing Payoff for the Tech Industry.”
8. Improve and optimize your website.
If you see that your website has few visits, think of ways which you can improve it. Don’t know what to look for? Consult a web design professional to look at your website and give you a quote on what should be done. Maybe you can change the headline phrasing to make it catchier or add some testimonials to your website.
9. Look for mentions of your businesses.
Negative reviews can be harmful for your business. A complaint can go out of control, with everyone affected retelling and spreading it. Look up your business in discussion boards, forums, and review sites like Yelp. Screen them for bad feedback and probe whether you can flag the comments. If you’re not able to do so, respond to the comment in a calm and professional manner. This will show others that you care about what your customers think about.
10. Ask other website owners to link to your own site.
Increase the number of inbound links to your sites from other websites. This will benefit you climb up the search engine rankings and make you more visible to a larger number of people who are actually looking for a business like yours. When customers see other websites linking to your own, they will trust you more. These links act as endorsements of how credible and reliable your company is.
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