Take a look at failed businesses and you will see a common problem amongst them. They may be in different industries. Some may have no funding, while the others may be heavily funded.
Look closely though, and one problem will always surface:
Companies fail because they are unable to sell their product or service
Believe it or not, even the best product won’t sell itself.
When it comes to selling on social media, many businesses will tell you it can’t be done. However, with the right approach, social media can be a critical piece of your sales machine.
8 Ways To Convert Social Media Leads Into Sales
1. Have A Clear Call-To-Action
Social media can be a very crowded place, so grabbing attention can be hard. That is why when you do grab someone’s attention, you will want to make sure you take full advantage of it. This is where a call-to-action (CTA) becomes very important.
Having a clear CTA is arguably the most important part of any sales copy. This is where you communicate the action you would like the viewers to take.
Examples of CTAs are: Sign Up Free, Subscribe Now or Reserve Your Spot Today.
Since including a CTA seems somewhat obvious, many businesses forget to add it. They are so focused on the imagery or the hashtags included that they forget to specify what the desired action is.
Bonus Tip: Make sure to include a call-to-action at the end of your video content. This is one area we see businesses routinely forget to include one.
2. Social Listening
If you have any experience with sales, it doesn’t start with you picking up a phone and calling random people. On the contrary, successful sales professionals understand that research and quality leads play a major role in their success or lack thereof.
Without an understanding of the pain points potential leads have, even the best salesperson would struggle to close deals. So, where do you find this information?
Social media is a great place to start! Through the use of hashtag and keyword research, you can find out a lot about your target market. Even better, you can engage directly with them. Ask them questions, monitor what they say and be the first company to solve their problems.
If you think monitoring social media has nothing to do with sales, think again. Social networks like Twitter give you unprecedented access to information that will help you improve your messaging and increase your sales.
3. Follow Up With Email
Email has been around much longer than social media and many marketers would argue that email is more effective than social media when it comes to closing deals. This may be true, but when used together they become even more effective.
Social media is an ideal place to build awareness and make connections. When it comes to closing deal however, the public nature of it causes issues.
A highly effective strategy is to make connections on social media that you will then follow up with via email. This strategy works well for a few reasons. The first reason is privacy. Email is much more intimate than a public tweet, for example. The second reason is that most people check their email religiously. This means your message has a much higher chance of being seen than if you were to send of a tweet or Facebook message.
4. Direct Message Campaigns
We have been currently experimenting with a direct message campaign on Twitter and have seen a lot of success. A direct message campaign will require a tool that can automate direct messages. Though you could do it manually, it will take much longer.
It is important to note that automated direct messages aren’t loved by all. In fact, a simple Google search will return posts such as:
So, you are probably wondering: Why would you want to do a direct message campaign? The answer is simple, because they work.
Here are a few tips to ensure your Direct Message campaign is a success:
- Only send messages to highly relevant leads
- Make your message as personal as possible
- Have a clear call-to-action
5. Webinars
When done right, webinars are a fantastic way to sell your product. This is especially true in the B2B space where webinars account for 20-40% of all qualified leads. Sounds awesome, right?
Well, not all webinars are created equally. In fact, you will find plenty of stories of people who hosted dozens of webinars that results in few or no sales.
Here are a few tips to help you drive sales with your next webinar:
- Start promoting your webinar at least 3 weeks in advance: social media is a great place to start, as is your email list.
- Don’t be afraid to sell: provide value to your viewers first, but do not be afraid to insert a sales pitch later on.
- Follow-up with participants: Once your webinar is over, the real selling begins. Follow-up with all of the participants to thank them, as well as provide them with information that can ease with the purchasing process
6. Social Media Advertisements
Advertising on social media has leveled the playing field for businesses worldwide. Businesses are now able to reach thousands, or even millions, of people for a fraction of what it used to cost.
In order to decide where the best place is to place an advertisement, you will need to identify your target market. The more specific you can be, the better. Once you understand who you want to advertise to, you need to figure out which network they spend the most time on.
For example, if your target market was Chief Marketing Officers at companies with over 4,000 employees, LinkedIn would most likely be your network of choice. However, if millennials were your target market, LinkedIn would not be very effective.
Many businesses make the mistake of assuming their ad will be effective on any network, since they have access to so many people. Save yourself frustration and money by doing your research to best understand where you should advertise. With this knowledge, you should have no problem generating leads and closing sales.
7. Publish “Gated” Content
We mentioned earlier how email is still an effective sales channel. What we didn’t discuss is how to gather emails for interested leads. One of the best ways to build your email list is to created “gated” content.
So, what is gated content? It is a blog post, e-book, etc. that requires an email address in order to gain access. Chance are you have seen this type of content before. It is important to note that gated content must be extremely high quality, otherwise no one will be interested in giving you their email.
Once you do have a nice email list built, the selling opportunities are endless. For example, you can send a direct email like we discussed earlier or you can upload the emails to one of the social media advertising platforms to create a highly targeted custom audience.
The bottom line is this: email works and gated content is one of the best ways to collect email from highly targeted leads.
8. Follow-Up Calls
In a world full of text messages, social media posts and emails, a phone call can go a long way. One of the biggest benefits to a phone call is the ability to have a genuine back and forth conversation.
We routinely pick up the phone and call current customers, as well as potential leads. What we have found is that people really appreciate the opportunity to speak with a “real person” without breaks in the conversation like you would see with other forms of communication.
The best part? You will learn so much! It is amazing how much you can learn about what your customers like, dislike and need in a 10 minute phone conversation.
If you started today thinking that social media and sales don’t belong in the same sentence, we hope that your mindset has changed. As you can see, there are many ways either directly or indirectly that social media can leads to sales. Your job as a marketer or business owner is to decide what combination of the eight methods listed above will work best for your business. If you are looking for an exact answer, it simply does not exist. Instead, roll up your sleeves, document your plan and then let the metrics direct you. If you see webinars are driving the most sales, use social media to promote your webinars more, as well as to find interested leads. If emails prove to be effective, consider creating more gated content that you can share on social media. We will leave you with a powerful quote to consider:Final Thoughts
“Social media replaces nothing, but compliments everything.” -Neal Schaffer
