Using social media well can boost your business’s profile, but the bottom line is what really matters. Here at Amack, we've been helping our clients to research leads on the various social media platforms and then use a few simple techniques to convert those leads into sales. We thought we’d share a few of our tricks of the trade with you.
Get your house in order first
Spend some time optimising your profile on each of the platforms you’ll be using. Ensure there are plenty of SEO keywords on your profile so future customers can find you easily and check the click-throughs to buy are easy to find and work properly.
Spruce up your landing page, too, so that when potential customers arrive there they find what they need and perhaps even hang around and explore your site.
Do a little prep elsewhere, too. Sort out your UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters so you can track the varying successes (hopefully!) of your online marketing campaigns and tweak future campaigns accordingly. Get your analytics shipshape and Bristol fashion too, so you can easily find out what interests your new leads, what times they’re active on social media and where you might be able to step in and help them.
Start finding your new leads
You might want to target more than one demographic at a time, using TikTok, for example, for younger groups and Facebook for slightly older ones. We’re finding LinkedIn works best for many of our current clients, by creating standout content and allowing you to use it to start conversations, but you’ll know what works for your own business. Once you know where you’re headed, here are a few things you can do to start creating those leads.
Create creative and relevant content to attract new followers.
Include calls to action in your posts, such as signing up to a newsletter, booking a video chat, or following a link to buy.
Offer a carrot for leads, sometimes called ‘lead magnets’. These might be competitions, gated content, discounts etc if they sign up. Note that none of these should be a sales pitch at this stage. Your goal is only to get contact details and an ‘in’ right now.
Pay for targeted ads with the relevant platforms, which not only allow you to target specific demographics but will also often include a call to action with contact forms pre-populated with information the platform already owns, making it really easy for your leads to fill out their details and share that with you. Facebook has been doing this successfully for some time and even TikTok now offers lead generation. We find LinkedIn’s lead generation particularly easy to use. In fact, according to Sprout Social, “Lead Generation forms on LinkedIn have a 13% conversion rate, while landing pages see about 2.35% conversions on average.”
Monitor streams for mentions of your particular sector and your competitors so that you can connect with anyone out there looking for your product or service and send them towards your business. This is known as Social Listening. Hootsuite Streams can help you do this.
Team up with influencers, who will come with their own whole new band of followers that you might be able to turn into leads for your own business.
Host virtual events or conferences that your followers can sign up to. You’ll then not only have their contact details, but also have the chance to get in a (virtual) room with them.
Have the resources in place to process any leads generated so you and your team waste no time in following them up.
Nurture those leads.
Once you have a lead, look after it well. You can have all the followers on social media in the world, but one good lead is always worth more. A bird in the hand, and all that. Here are a few ways to show good ‘lead-ship’.
Scoop up any hoverers and convert them fast. (The technical term is ‘retargeting’). If someone has begun to fill out a pre-populated form, for example, you can nudge them to complete the process.
When a lead contacts you, reply IMMEDIATELY. A quick ‘Hi! Thanks so much for signing up to our newsletter/discount offers/funny cat memes stream. We’re happy to have you with us’ is all you need. Remember that most SMEs are most active on social media at the weekends, so if you don’t want to be answering messages at your golf club, yoga class or in the supermarket, set up a conversational chatbot for times when you aren’t online.
Assess your leads to work out what they might need. What size is their company? What are the pain points you can help with? What would their budget and time frame be for finding solutions to those? All these things you can figure out by looking at the data they’ve given you as well as the ways in which they consume and engage with your content and who their other engagements online are with, too.
Build a community and encourage interaction between your leads, so they have a reason to stay. After all, if they’re both interested in your product, they already have something in common. This could be the start of something beautiful - and TWO new conversions rather than one!
Lastly, love up your leads until they are ready to buy. Keep them engaged in your community, give them content that you know is relevant and helps them out, and keep talking to them so you become a familiar presence in the online life of their business.
Convert the leads to sales.
You’ve found your leads, grown them into relationships. Now you’re ready to convert them into sales. Begin by getting them to take their next step with you on their journey to becoming your client. That might be signing up for a demonstration or trial period, or taking part in a no-strings-attached video call where you can have a chat and they can ‘try you for size.’
Once you’ve done that, you’re on your way to moving the online relationship to the real world. Follow up with a phone call or take them out for a coffee*. If you don’t feel you’re getting anywhere, use CRM technology to send automated texts and emails to help with follow-up. Various people respond differently to various means of communication so it makes sense to try several methods and see which gets a positive response.
