So you’ve spent a lot of time engaging with your small business’s followers on social media. You share relevant and fun content like useful advice, tips and info about shared interests and increase your brand awareness. But how do you turn these followers into paying customers?
Social media is a great opportunity for brand awareness. But if you’re building a community online and finding that it’s not really going anywhere, it can begin to feel a little like hitting a brick wall.
How can you start to grow your small business with the help of your social platforms? To answer that, here are my 7 top tactics to generate leads on social media and convert them into customers. Let’s have a look!
1. Promotions
One way to turn your social media followers into paying customers is through short-term promotions, like:
- special offers,
- discounts,
- promo codes,
- competitions
- and prize draws.
I will say, however, these methods should be used sparingly! Consistently running promotions can give the impression of devaluing your products or services. And, of course, they eat into your profit margin. So, proceed with caution.
That being said, occasional special offers, discounts and competitions can be a great way to liven things up if it’s a quiet time, or celebrate a launch! This competition from Colour Mill (see above) was a great way to introduce a new product to their customers with a bang. Promo codes and short-term discounts can also create a buzz and help a potential customer step over that line for the first time.
Make sure to ask them if you can use their contact details for marketing purposes (while being GDPR compliant, of course). This way, they can benefit from even more offers and you can add them to your customer database.
2. Call-to-actions
Regardless of whether you’re writing a new post, creating a prize draw or designing your next cover image: always remember to tell people what you would like them to do. ‘Click here’ or ‘check it out’ or ‘shop now’ are good examples if you want them to follow a link.
‘Sign up today’, ‘get in touch’ or ‘enter the competition to win’ are a great way to engage people with your latest promotion or contest. And if you have a bookable service? Do not miss the chance to encourage them to ‘book now’!
Your mailing list is a really good option to promote as the “next step” for potential customers. It feels like less pressure than pushing them to the sale right away, and it’s a great way for you to build your email contacts – something really crucial. You don’t own your social media accounts – you do own your mailing list!
Just make sure to always add a call-to-action or a question to get more engagement and convert more followers into paying customers.
Find out about my 12 top tips on how to write better copy and convert more leads into paying clients.
3. Links
Make it easy for your followers to find out more about your small business. Show them how they can follow your blog or order directly from you by adding links to your social media bios.
On Instagram, for example, I have linked to a few of my most important pages and links via my bio. As you can see in the above image, I’ve included my website, my mailing list, my blog and my co-working space, giving potential clients as many opportunities as possible to take the next step! This is valuable space you don’t want to let go to waste.
In terms of your posts, be sure to link to your website, blog, product pages, manuals, testimonials or price list regularly if you can (while keeping the 80-20 rule in mind).
Of course, social media isn’t what it once was in terms of getting link clicks (you can read more about this in my post here). But, in a nutshell, posts with links included are only getting limited reach these days. However, there are different tactics you can use to try to work around this.
For example, instead of linking to your blog post directly in the post, add it as a link in the comments (although the jury’s still out if that makes a difference). Or, include something like “Comment YES and I’ll pop the link over to you in a DM” in your caption.
4. Benefits and Social Proof
Don’t just assume that people know what you’re doing: Tell them. Show them. Talk about what makes you different, especially in comparison to your competition. Show behind-the-scenes images and showcase your work.
Ask yourself: What are they gaining from using your products and services? Are they going to be fitter, healthier, more successful or simply better organised?
Make your content reflect the benefits of your products and services, show them what they can do with it or what the possible achievements are and how to get there. Make them excited about the prospect of working with or buying from you!
It’s important here that you share content showing not only what your products/services are, but how they work. Show them in action! This could look like a product or service walkthrough video, a before-and-after post, or even a mini case study. Anything to help your followers fully grasp what they’ll be getting if they buy from or work with you.
In addition to this, consider sharing social proof as often as you can. This could look like sharing positive feedback from existing customers, screenshotting great reviews and adding commentary, or collaborating with an existing customer to share their story, from discovering your business, to buying/signing up, to experiencing positive results!
People believe people more than they believe businesses. So don’t miss the opportunity to show that other customers have benefited from what you do, and are happy to talk about it.
5. Paid advertising
One way of turning your followers into paying customers on social media is paid advertising. Choose from different goals for your advertising campaign: you can simply increase your likes and followers, you can promote your website or spread the word about a special offer you’re running.
Take this Furn Instagram carousel advert, for example. A carousel ad allows you to drive traffic to multiple pages on your website – so it promotes several products or services within one ad. These ads are also shown to be more cost-effective and receive higher engagement than other ad formats. This sponsored post includes several different styles from their collection, allowing them to catch the eye of multiple customers in one go, with a call-to-action in the form of a Shop Now link.
Advertising allows you to get really specific about your target audience and get your content in front of those people. While it doesn’t necessarily do anything you can’t do by simply posting to your followers, it amplifies your content and campaigns.
It should be noted, though, that advertising should only be used as part of a strategy alongside your organic content. Targeted ads are only reaching people who are at the buying stage – for more brand awareness, you need a well-rounded strategy with organic posts too. And ads, like discounts and special offers, eat into your profit margin.
Check out my post focused on the Pros and Cons of Direct Marketing for Small Business.
6. Events
How about getting face-to-face with your social media followers at an event? No matter if it’s happening online or in person, an event is a great way to turn your followers into customers or clients.
You can organise your own event, for example, a tutorial for your product or a workshop about a topic that’s relevant to your audience.
You can also invite them to a trade show you are exhibiting at or to a conference where you are a speaker and ask them to seek you out and have a chat.
7. Customer service
No matter if you’re on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, all social media platforms have two-way communication and that makes them ideal for customer service purposes.
Signal to your followers that they can get in touch if they have questions about your products or services. Reply as quickly as you can if they do and help them in any way possible. It’s a great way to start a conversation and show them that you’re worth their while – and money.
If your work schedule means that you won’t be able to check social media messages frequently, consider setting up an automated message with your preferred method of contact. This way, the customer won’t be left waiting!
8. Start Conversations
Your DMs are also a good place to start conversations – as long as you let the potential customer take the first step! For example, if you share a poll or a survey (making it clear you’ll be getting in touch with respondents!), or ask for direct feedback on your social media, this can be a great way of forming a connection with a follower.
If they engage with these posts and there’s an opportunity to reply to them with a bit more information or to explore their feedback, do it! Connecting with them by direct message allows you to send those all-important links privately, without contending with the algorithm.
This is a time when you shouldn’t be shy about asking for feedback – if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and people are often happy to spot an opportunity to learn more before they take the leap and purchase something.
9. Pin key content
And finally, make use of the opportunity to pin key content to the top of your account. Anything that is typically “conversion ready” – an ongoing “new customer” offer, an important testimonial or a guide to making a purchase or signing up. These are the types of posts you want potential customers to come back to, having looked at them already and coming back to find them to follow through with the next step!
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok allow you to pin a post to the top of your feed, ensuring that your important content stays easily accessible and doesn’t get pushed down by newer posts. And on LinkedIn, you can do something similar by using their “Feature on top of profile” feature.
This way, you can continue to share new, exciting content without losing the impact of those crucial conversion-ready posts.
FURTHER READING
If you are interested in reading more about this topic, have a look at these:
How to Add Personality to Your Social Media Marketing
Why You Should Focus on Your Social Media Engagement
4 Types of Social Media Content You Should Focus On
How to Avoid Social Media Overwhelm as a Small Business Owner
