Tag Archives: marketing

How to Leverage Facebook for Sales and Marketing Success – A 5 Step Process

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Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites on the internet today.  With a very large audience, Facebook offers unlimited potential for sales and marketing success.  Follow these steps to grow your business on Facebook.

1.Business Profile
Update your business profile with up to date information.  It should describe what your business is about and the products or services it provides.  Also, make sure you include the business for your website.

If you have other members of your business, put them into your business profile.  This will enable other members of your business to spread word of it to possible consumers who may be interested in your products or services.  You want to allow your business to reach as many consumers as possible.

2.Engage in Groups
Facebook offers an unlimited number of groups based on a wide variety of topics and interests.  These groups allow you to target related areas of your business.  Look for groups to join in which users who belong to these groups would possibly be interested in your products.

3.Events and Posts
Facebook has a feature where you could post events for your business.  Take advantage of this by scheduling events in which your fans (the term Facebook uses for people who follow your business) could attend.  You could use this to provide a special sale in which customers could attend.  This can also work for “online only” events.  You could announce the starting date of a time and provide a link to a product at a special price.  This could enhance the traffic to your site and the sales of your product.

Also, keep your fans updated regarding your business.  If you have articles and posts about your business, you could simply link to your website on your Facebook page.  Choose a method which works best for you.  You should be updating your Facebook page on a consistent basis to keep your fans up to date regarding your business.

4.Don’t Always “Sell”
One of the worst mistakes you can do on Facebook, or any other social networking platform, is to always try to directly sell products or services.  People don’t want to be constantly bombarded by advances from a business.

Develop relationships with those in groups.  You don’t want to keep throwing your product out there after every post you make.  Begin by writing well-informed posts and responses to help other people or to contribute knowledge.  Answer a few questions and get involved.  This will allow others to see you and your business in a positive light.  This will also expose users to your business in a more natural way.  As they become more comfortable with you and get to know you and your business, they will naturally see what you have to offer.  Also, they will be less likely to immediately disregard what you are selling when you do advertise and sell in your posts.

While you shouldn’t always sell your product or services, you should be aware of when to sell.  Once you have developed a relationship with your customers, don’t be afraid to tell them about your new products or services, or to keep them updated with your business.  Post occasional news items regarding your business in the groups you are a member of, and always keep the Facebook page of your business updated.

In addition to timely selling, it is important to keep customers interested.  One great way to do this is to host specials on Facebook.  You could even try placing exclusive Facebook discounts for your products or services on your Facebook page or in the groups.  This would stimulate interests and sales for your business.  Also, the consumer base will be more likely to grow if you post specials and deals in which your customers would be interested.

5.Paid Advertising
With Facebook’s unlimited potential due to their high volume, it is worth considering paid advertising on Facebook.  Facebook offers amazing potential and powerful ad systems.

One of Facebook’s most powerful features is its ability to target users.  Advertisers can now target users based on a wide variety of filters: location, age, birthday, sex, keywords, education, workplaces, relationship, interested in, languages, and connections.  This will allow you to target who could be likely to be interested in your product or services.  This is especially useful for those who have business which cater to very specific demographics.

You can also track how well your ad is performing.  Clicks, click through rates (CTR), actions, action rates, and more can be tracked by Facebook’s functionality to produce custom reports for your ads.  Make sure you are aware of how your ads are doing and adjust accordingly.  This is also a great way to test out Facebook’s ad system to see if you should invest more money.  Remember to start out with a reasonable test amount to get a more accurate reading of ad performance, though.

If you decide to use Facebook’s paid advertising system, keep your goals in mind.  Carefully target users who would be interested in your product, and use your financial resources wisely.  Never over target customers.  The most important thing to do is to develop interest in your product or services and then build these relationships.  Then you will be able to sell to this customer base.  Also, keep track on the resources that you are used and compare them to other paid advertising methods you are using, if applicable.  You will then be able to evaluate whether Facebook is a good way to advertise your services or products your business offers.

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SEO and Other Forms of Advertising

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Search engines are by and far the largest supplier of traffic to your web site. Moreover, its targeted, meaning the visitors that arrive at your site were looking for information that you are delivering. At least this is the goal of the search engines to deliver high quality results to web surfers.

Recent major changes in Google, Yahoo and MSN have put the internet market however in a frenzy. As the search engines battle it out to be the one producing the highest quality results by frequently altering their index algorithm, search engine optimization has taken an almost obsessive importance.

The problem I see is that the battle is not going to end soon and repeatedly trying to stay ahead by optimizing after each re-indexing is truly a never ending battle. A balance must be struck between search engine advertising and other online venues.

Starting out with an online home business business is intimidating. There is pressure to build a quality site, offer valuable information, promote, build subscribers,and the list goes on and on. Having a few different forms of advertising that you slowly utilize can payoff big in the long run. With a market
that can change on an hourly basis, you must not focus too heavily on any single form of site promotion.

Think of it as your advertising bag of goodies. You reach in and pull out one method and give it a try. Do not dump all of your resources into it. Spread them out. Reach in and pick another, until you have a few in the works. Now pause and see which is working. Tweak a bit here and there and sit back again. Continuously re evaluating your advertising campaigns, you will begin to grow a deep feeling as to which works for your online business.

Here are a few types of advertising for your home business you should consider

  1. Classified Ads  cheap and short to write.
  2. Article submission  write an article and post for free.
  3. The rewards reaped can be enormous in the long term.
  4. Paid ads in E Zines  hit those seldom used small niche markets
  5. Link exchange  can you bring in traffic from another site. You betcha.
  6. Newsgroup and Discussion lists  join in on discussion and pass out a small blurb about your business at the end.
  7. Signature files after all your online activity. Make use of all of the emails you send out daily.
  8. Flyers. Yep, offline.

The bottom line here is not to stagnate. Search engines are important but not the only way to promote. Its better to balance your site optimization with other promotion strategies. If one method fails you at least have others to fall back on.

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Understand Exactly What Your Business Has to Offer

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Every business started for a reason and every business did so because they felt they could offer people something that no other company was able to. When a company first starts out they are more likely to keep that idea close to them.

Everything they do will likely be centered on this very idea. However, the longer a company exists the further they start to drift from that idea. I have talked to people from companies before where I quite literally asked them what it was that their company could do that no one else could, and they just gave me a blank stare.

This is and always should be your chief selling point. Now, this is not always going to remain the same as it did when you first started your company. For one thing, if you happen to originally offer something that no other company does, but once you are successful, you get a lot of other people following your lead, you have to change what makes you unique.

The very first company to get catalog printing done and send them right to a person’s home had the benefit of saying that they offered people a level of convenience that no one else could. The very idea of being able to shop right from your home was unique and immediately grabs a person’s attention, leading to a great selling point for those first few companies.

Catalog printing is hardly a rare thing now, and if that is all you have going for you than you are not likely to get a lot of interest. Those companies had to eventually alter their key selling point by improving on their catalogs rather than just keep focusing on the exact same thing.

This was no different when the internet became mainstream and stores began opening up cyber counterparts to their actual locations. This in and of itself was their selling point initially, while now it has become a given that stores will certainly have an online version.

All of this means that a selling point needs to evolve. Nevertheless, for it to evolve you first have to know what it is that you are evolving from, which is why it is so important to know what your stores strength is at all times.

The best way to keep track of this is to be sure that every marketing push is centered on your selling point, and that when you do alter this selling point, you are still taking into account what the first selling point was. Let us use that first example of catalog printing.

Because innovation and convenience was part of the first selling point for those first catalogs the natural way to improve this would be to find some new way to alter the catalog that made them easier for people, which was what quickly happened.

Figure out the best way to improve upon your selling point, and never forget what makes your company unique.

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