In our last post, we talked about what you can do to make your blog posts more visible. Visibility is a major factor in making your social media marketing campaign a success. And while it is both a first and essential step in your strategy, the purpose of creating visibility is to generate leads for your business. Keep reading to learn seven simple steps you can follow to move from creating visibility to generating leads.
Ensure your strategy is actually reaching your target audience.
By this point, you should have already identified your target audience and begun to aim your marketing efforts toward them. As you create more visibility, you want to ensure that you are still funneling accurately. The audience viewing your company and products, should still be the same audience you expect to connect with your company, use your services, or purchase your products. To keep your target audience your focus, adjust your “funnel” so that additional steps are available as your audience interacts with your posts and content.
Learn more about your clients as you strive to generate leads.
As those in your target audience engage with your content, work on collecting information from them. One of the best things to learn from your potential customers and clients is their contact information. Additional information that could be beneficial would be information regarding their interests, their place of business, and other demographic information that can help you better understand your target audience more fully.
Be prepared to respond quickly and fully engage with those interacting with your posts and content.
Now that you are opening up the lines of communication more readily with your target audience, they should be responding to you via chats, emails, and phone calls. It is important that you respond to these messages as quickly as possible. It is highly recommended that your response to these potential clients and customers takes no longer than one hour, but responding within five minutes increases the likelihood of their becoming actual clients and customers. One way to increase your response rate is by setting up automated messages that can respond to your leads immediately, letting them know when you will be able to get back in touch with them and answering frequently asked questions.
Persistently follow-up with the leads you are generating.
Now that you have increased visibility, gathered contact information, and begun to communicate with new potential clients and customers, it is important that you continue to follow-up with them. One response does not count as quality follow-up. Rather, you should continue to reach out and continue to nourish your leads. The more contact you have with a lead, the more likely you are to make a sale or create a new client. We recommend trying to have at least six or seven contacts with the leads you are generating.
Work on your closing offer.
The purpose behind generating leads is to close a sale or to create a new genuine client. If you have been able to make contact with them and continue to follow up but are unable to close the deal, perhaps you need to rethink what you are offering to your clients. Not everyone will take you up on an offer, even if it is a great one, but if you consistently have a problem closing the deal, you might need to work on either your product or your price point.
Adjust your communications (and script) when necessary.
Another reason you may be having trouble closing the deal is because your script needs work. You may have a wonderful product with a great offer, but may not be explaining it properly to your potential clients. Be sure that you are clear with what you have to offer and why it is right for your customers and clients.
Collect feedback from those whom you do and don’t close.
If you are still unable to close as many leads as you would like, it is helpful to gather feedback from those who have yet to respond as you’d like. Ask how you can improve your product, your company, or the way you describe the offer. You may find that you just need to do a little tweaking, or you may find that you need to adjust your target audience. Either way, feedback can help you generate leads and close offers as well.
If you’re not sure how to get started shaping up your social media marketing strategy, we are happy to help! Contact the experts at VisionPATH Marketing for a free consultation today. It would be our pleasure to serve you and help you generate leads for your business.