If you ever copy what the majority is doing, just know you are probably doing the worst thing possible for your business.
Social Media Examiner conducted its annual survey of 3,000 companies on their use and results from social media marketing and the results found are horrifying, yet not surprising.
While 86% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business, 89% said “Increased exposure” was their number one benefit and only 37% of marketers think that their Facebook efforts are effective.
Seriously. Why You Should be Different
The majority of those on social media are focused on mere popularity and not anything of significance. You can get all of the “likes” in the world that you would like, but if they never turn into revenue dollars, you might as well have set your company’s money on fire.
Effective social media marketing is focused on driving results and is based on direct response principles. Learn them and apply them to social media to put yourself in that tiny minority of successful marketers who utilize their time and money to produce results.
How to Drive Sales on Social Media: There will ALWAYS be an OFFER or OFFERS.
In social media, you never want to come across as the used car salesman pouncing on his next victim, but you do need to ensure that you are giving your prospects a consistent opportunity to connect and do business with you. If you don’t, you will not realize a return of your marketing dollars and staff resources spent online. (GM is king of this…they did nothing to give an effective call to action and then declared social media advertising to be a waste of their time and money. They are back on now, by the way.)
Types of Offers
A. Lead generation: An incentive for your recipient to provide contact information. This is done through offering something of inherent value that is so good your recipient would pay for it…except they won’t because you will be giving it away for free. This can include any incentive such as…
• A report/white paper/guide
• Chapter of your book
• E-book
• Video
• Gift certificate
• Sample
• Webinar
• Video training series
• Ticket to a live event
B. Sale: It IS possible to sell directly to cold traffic on social media. We do it every day for many of our clients using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, but here are a few key things to remember…
There should be something special about your offer…such as….
• It is being sold there first
• It is being sold for less money
• It starts with a free trial
• It comes with bonuses
A few examples:
1. Ron LeGrand offers his Wholesale Houses Course for $1 and includes a free trial of his Gold Club (details at tinyurl.com/wholesalehouses).
2. Gardner’s Mattress and More offers a buyer’s guide to purchasing mattresses (details at https://gardners.leadpages.net/gardners-book-io-fb/).
3. Staub & Associates offers one complimentary sales training class (details at http://www. getano.sandler.com/).
Want more social media strategies? Visit www.6SocialMediaSecrets.com for your special report, “6 Direct Response Marketing Principles That Have to Be Applied to Social Media Marketing or You Might As Well Set Your Money on Fire (As Most Companies Do).”
