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(I will never rent, trade, or sell your information) * = required fieldYou won’t make money on your Facebook profile. Not a dime will enter your account with just a Tweet, and unless you are running ads on your blog, you aren’t going to make any money there either. So I’ve said it – the dirty truth about social media. If you are going to spend your precious time approving friend requests and updating your various “statuses” you’d better know exactly how that is going to improve your bottom line. Social media is worthless without a clear strategy.
Now, I write this somewhat confessionally as someone who has a Twitter account, Facebook profile, and LinkedIn page. I am a dabbler – doing the bare minimum to keep my accounts alive. So, why would I tell you this? Because it’s true, and because you might be feeling guilty about not having all your social media buzzing around you on a daily (if not hourly) basis. Also because you might be on the opposite end – trying desperately to build your clientele while spending hours each day tweeting and updating and requesting friends by the dozens – and you might be wondering when it’s going to pay off for you.
You see, what I have learned from experience, and from learning about how people buy, is that social media is only one tactic among the many possibilities for marketing your business, and just like any tactic, posting willy-nilly out into the ether is not going to bring you the results you want.
You need to have a clear strategy that will bring a prospect who doesn’t know you through various levels of education about you and engagement with your materials, possibly through low-risk investment in your work, and up to the point where they are comfortable hiring you at the higher-price, longer-commitment point you are shepherding them to.
The first step is to get clear on what the path looks like – in marketing-speak this is called your products/services funnel. The reason it is called a funnel, is because if you picture it as an inverted triangle, at the wide top, is where all your prospects first come to you. This might be an e-zine sign-up or some other no-cost engagement. You might have several streams dumping people into your funnel – advertising, networking, etc. At the small bottom of your funnel is your “big ticket” service or product offering: private coaching, custom servicing, etc.
The space in-between is where you have a lot of room to play. In most cases, you can’t just get someone at the top of the funnel, who most likely has just heard of you, and immediately sell them the highest level of service you offer. That would be like proposing marriage on the first date. What you need are several offerings which bridge that gap – in cost and in commitment.
So, what sort of things can go in the middle? More free stuff – like teleseminars, or additional marketing/educational materials (a CD, booklet, etc) – but which require giving more information (for instance, a postal address or phone number) or involve a certain investment of time (attending a 1 hour talk, filling out a survey or assessment, etc). You should also offer paid products and services, at a lower price point: Classes or teleworkshops, small info products, “laser coaching” sessions, etc.
You can expand the middle of your funnel as much as you want to: membership/continuity programs, bigger workshops or info products, group coaching or mastermind groups, you get the idea. The more possibilities there are to work with you/your materials in different ways will help more people “warm up” to you and move themselves closer and closer to your big-ticket services. Some people might never get to the bottom of your funnel, but in the meantime they have been a customer for you, and will continue to be available for any new things you come up with. Loyal customers will want most everything you end up offering, and selling to a current customer is much easier than selling to a new person.
So, once you have your funnel in place, the key is to strategically use your social media to drive people into your funnel, or directly to individual things in the middle of your funnel (since not everyone needs to come in through the top). It’s easier to sell a free 1 hour teleseminar on Facebook, than your $1,000 3-month coaching package.
The other thing to know about social media, is that you can’t make the sale right there – you can only raise awareness and direct people to your sales page, sign-up form, or website.
You can also use social media to build a communal feeling among people in your target market, and engage with people in a non-sales way, but unless you are just doing that for fun, you need to have a plan of offers for those people as well.
Once you have your funnel in place, you will be able to see where social media can help you bring new people in, or inform current acquaintances of new offerings. If you need help creating your call-to-action infrastructure, please contact me today.
