Social Media Marketing: 4 Ways to Make Customers Out of Followers

If you and your business have questioned whether social media is an effective vehicle for marketing your products and services, I hope you know the answer by now.

It’s yes.

And if you’re unconvinced, you may underestimate just how huge social media has become. Where else is there the potential of reaching thousands, even millions of people?

However, this kind of opportunity doesn’t come without savvy marketing and hard work. In fact, most companies find it very difficult to turn their social media followers into customers. Platforms such as Facebook are constantly changing their algorithms in ways that seem to work against businesses. Today, a social media ad might organically reach just 5% - 10% of the people that it may have reached five years ago.

But there are still ways to use social media marketing to your advantage. Conversion takes time, and it requires that you build relationships, but both of these things can be achieved on social media.

So, if you’re ready and willing to use social media to market your products and services, let’s look at four opportunities that can help your business convert prospects into real customers.

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1. Provide Real Value

Businesses have to be very conscious of the message they are conveying. Nothing’s worse than a business page that only harasses its followers in a poor attempt to coerce them into purchasing a product.

To make a sale, you have to build trust. Trust is foundational to marketing. You can’t expect someone to buy something if they don’t know you or your product. And to build trust, you have to cultivate relationships with your followers.

What are you providing to your followers without asking for money?

Do you produce blog content that may be helpful to them? Do you respond to any direct messages or questions they might have about your products or services? Do you look for opportunities to engage with them, whether by gathering feedback or posting polls?

These different activities help build your brand’s reputability so that when the time does come to make a sales appeal, your followers are much more inclined to listen to what you have to say.

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2. Launch Landing Pages

If you’ve run a social media campaign with one of the destinations being your business’s website, no wonder you’re not making sales. This is a poor practice.

Getting followers is easy... Directing traffic is relatively easy... But making sales is already hard, and not being purposeful and specific about your campaign is a waste of your time and your followers’ time.

Instead, you should be using landing pages for every campaign. These are pages that are designed specifically for a campaign, with the purpose of making a sale or giving away a product in exchange for a prospect’s name and email address.

The goal should be to funnel traffic to your landing page, not your site, and have people be able to purchase your product or leave you with the means to market to them in the future.

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3. Offer Deals and Discounts

Deals and discounts should be staples in your social media marketing strategy.

It’s not about the price tag or even the product itself. It’s about creating perceived value for customers. If a customer sees that they can get something at a reduced price, they are much more likely to justify spending the money.

Even if you can’t offer a jaw-dropping deal, offer something and supplement it with language that gives the offer a real sense of value. Such language may include words and phrases such as, “while supplies last,” “limited edition,” “exclusive,” and “for a limited time only.”

You’ve probably heard and read these phrases thousands of times, but that’s because this kind of language is effective. It attracts customers, alerts them, and conveys a sense of urgency.

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4. Create Contests

Want to capture the full attention of your followers? Host a contest and offer an exclusive prize to the winner. Contests are highly successful, and there are two reasons for this.

First, there’s the competitive nature of a contest, and this is an element that appeals to more people than you would think! Contests don’t cost participants anything (except maybe their time), but the chance of coming out on top is exhilarating.

And second, people want to be acknowledged. They feel validated when someone approves their ideas or praises their work, so imagine how special they feel when they are acknowledged by someone “important” or by a big brand.

Contests are a win-win for everyone. Followers compete for a free prize, and your business generates excitement around your brand and its products.

Not every follower likes your product. Not every prospect turns into a customer. Funneling hundreds or even thousands of people towards a landing page may only yield a handful of sales. But smart marketing will maximize that number of conversions. Start by implementing these four essential practices and watch your conversion rate begin to rise.