When it comes to measuring the success of their social media marketing efforts, the forefront metric on the mind of the majority of my clients is total revenue generated. Makes sense. As a business owner myself, I am constantly thinking about it. But the truth is, it’s really hard to make a sale directly off a social media post. Not impossible – but difficult enough that it turns many businesses off from using social media altogether, because they’re frustrated by the amount of time and energy (and even money) they’ve spent without making a single sale.
Sound familiar?
If so, I’d like to invite you to look at your social media marketing efforts in a new way.
To do this, you first need to consider what your business goals are, and then determine how social media can support those goals. So let’s say you have a revenue goal (which I hope you do) – in this case, social media can support this goal by generating leads, not sales.
Yes, sales will happen very occasionally, but as I mentioned before, they’re rare. Leads, on the hand… leads abound. And it’s the leads generated that you need to track.
If you’ve been in business a while, you probably have at least a rough idea of your conversion rates (that is to say the number of viable prospects you need to close a sale, and the number of leads you need to generate in order to qualify said viable prospects). You may find that, with social media, the total leads you need to generate in order to find a qualified prospect increase by as much as double or even triple your usual number; this is simply because there are a lot of tire-kickers out there. It’s not good or bad – it’s just the nature of social media.
If you’re newer in business, or if this is something you haven’t been keeping track of, it won’t take you long to figure out your averages and I promise you that tracking them is not hard. You can use a spreadsheet, a CRM system, or good ol’ pen and paper. No need to get overly technical here.
All this to say, don’t get hung up on the fact you’re not making sales off social media. Focus instead on the leads you’re generating.
The best way to generate leads is by using what’s known as a lead magnet that funnels the lead into your email marketing system. The lead magnet goes by many names, including opt-in, irresistible free offer, awesome free gift, freebie, and so on. Essentially, it allows the lead to get a “taste” of what you offer. It can be a PDF, a report, templates, videos, audios, anything at all. Once they’ve opted in to receive your lead magnet, it’s then time to let your email marketing system take over and nurture them with a sequence of emails.
Where and How to Find Leads
It’s simple:
- Get clear on who you are and what you offer
- Get clear on who your ideal clients are
- Focus on the social media platform(s) your ideal clients actually use
- Create a compelling lead magnet that addresses a common problem your ideal clients want to solve
- Create engaging, relevant, and high-quality social media content that riffs off the content of your lead magnet (aka your message). This includes blog posts, videos, images, etc.
- For every 5 posts that allude to your message, 1 should include a call-to-action to grab a copy of your lead magnet with a link directly to the opt-in page
- Nuture those who opt-in with more great content, both through a nurture sequence and through your ezine.
As you can see, the process itself is not rocket science! The technology and the different moving parts are what take up time and energy, and what make a lot of people want to throw in the towel before they see any real results from their efforts.
When you start tracking leads, and the conversions of those leads, it will make it a lot easier for you to see the return on investment when it comes to revenue.
Do you still have questions about turning your social media followers into loyal, paying clients?