6 Simple Ways to Increase Sales With Social Media
One of the key metrics that all business owners think about is their ROI (return on investment).
This performance measure can evaluate the efficiency of your finances or compare them to several other ones.
It attempts to directly see the amount of return on a specific investment, relative to its overall cost.
You can calculate ROI by taking the return or benefit of an investment, and then dividing it by its cost.
Your answer is then expressed in the form of a ratio or percentage.
A common question that owners ask themselves today involves the ROI of their social media investments.
Do you even know if your Facebook posts or Instagram images are making a positive impact on your budget?
Should you transfer your efforts to Twitter or Pinterest instead?
Understanding where your brand stands with social media matters more than you might realize.
If you are not in the right place at the right time, then your e-commerce efforts can never reach a peak level of efficiency.
That is why this guide toward driving more sales through social media is such a critical asset for the modern business owner or entrepreneur.
When you understand the origination of your traffic and what they want, then you can unlock the secrets to having a robust ROI throughout the year.
ROI Rules to Follow on Social Media
The first rule of driving sales through social media is that you need to be on the platform which your audience uses.
Signing up for Facebook might make sense for most companies, but you cannot expect to locate your targeted demographics there without conducting any research first.
You must look at where your ideal customers like to socialize online.
Find where they tend to be the most active.
Unless you have significant capital or don’t mind the time it takes to manage every conceivable platform, you must be strategic about this choice.
Here are some examples to consider when trying to choose the best social media platform that can help you to improve your ROI.
- LinkedIn is an excellent starting point for B2B audiences, especially if you are targeting professionals in the 18-29 age demographic.
- Facebook is a go-to source of social traffic and sales since up to 85% of all orders for some companies can from this platform. It also has one of the highest conversion rates across all industries at nearly 2%.
- Pinterest is a solid choice for any company that sells handcrafted items, artwork, or similar creative ventures.
- Twitter is the place to be when you have time to engage on a 1-to-1 basis with your future customers.
- If your concerns have more to do with the average amount per order that you receive from social media, then Reddit and Instagram are the platforms to choose.
You will find that some industries over-perform on one specific platform, so it is imperative that your company is present there.
Photographers, pet supply companies, and drop-shipping agencies see significant success on Facebook compared to their other social media orders.
If you are not sure where your online audience tends to connect, then a tool like Keyhole can provide you with the information you want.
Choose a popular hashtag that your competitors use, and then see where the results come out.
Then you will be ready to follow these additional ROI rules when expanding your social media presence.
1. Work with social media influences whenever you can.
Twitter found that about 2 out of every 5 users of their platform feel compelled to complete a purchase after they see the tweet of an influencer.
This option helps your ROI because people tend to trust the influencers they follow at the same level as they do their friends.
Promoting your brand in this way, even if you work with micro-influences, can deliver ROI rates that are as high as 600%.
One of the best ways to improve your ROI with influencers is to have them strategically place videos or photos of your products in their posts.
Have them tell a fun, engaging story about your brand if you want.
You can even work with influencers to offer honest reviews of your goods or services, provide tutorials to new customers, or create how-to content that allows people to maximize the value of their purchase.
Another option is to have your influencers offer specific discount codes.
Make sure that you use a platform like Grin to connect to relevant accounts on social media who can help to promote your brand.
2. Turn your current customers into future brand ambassadors.
One of the fastest ways to encourage a stronger ROI on social media is to promote your items to warm leads by using real people.
That’s why influencer marketing is such a substantial addition to any campaign.
The only problem with influencers is that some potential customers see them as a paid representative for your company.
That’s why working with your existing customers to help them become brand ambassadors can be a powerful addition to your social media strategy.
These are real people who can recommend your items to their personal and professional networks with a simple post.
Most will offer this benefit in exchange for future discounts or free items.
There is an excellent chance that some of your customers are already talking about your items.
Use hashtag and keyword searches to locate and encourage this behavior even more.
Look for appealing profiles that promote robust images of your product, and then reach out to that individual to see if they have an interest in becoming a brand ambassador.
You don’t need to worry about follower counts using this option because the cost is not very high.
If you offer a steep discount, then there is no guarantee that the individual will follow through with the purchase, but you will gain the benefit of a couple of engaging social media posts about your brand and product.
3. Take advantage of user-generated content.
The average person will read up to 10 reviews before they decide to make a purchase.
People go through this public information on various sites because they want to know if the product and your company are as trustworthy as you seem.
It is a way to reduce anxiety and prevent buyer’s remorse – especially if you are an unfamiliar brand.
When people read a review, the experiences and opinions expressed are treated as if they came from a trusted family member.
There is a specific amount of integrity associated with those words that can forge a connection. 70% of consumers are more likely to purchase something through social media if they see content which makes your company or product feel positive and relatable when another person posted it.
Reviews can also turn potential customers away if the information is negative in some way.
Encourage people to leave reviews (good or bad) as a way to establish a positive reputation.
You can ask people to share their photographs of your products online to generate more attention to increase their loyalty and improve your credibility as well.
Invite your customers to share images of themselves wearing or using your products on different platforms for a chance to be featured on your brand’s home page.
There is an excellent chance that you will receive a strong response for a minimal investment.
4. Prove the value of your content.
Social media is one of the best platforms to use when you want to offer small content items that have value to your audience.
It should be engaging, compelling, and enticing enough to encourage a click to push someone forward in your sales funnel.
Many companies use this process to promote their blogs, but this advantage doesn’t need to stop there.
You can provide guides to consumers that can help them maximize the value of their investment into your product.
Offer content that instructs customers on how to use your items correctly.
Betty Crocker uses social media as a way to promote their products by offering customers access to free recipes.
The dishes are simple enough to make in a few minutes, and then every ingredient comes from the brand.
You can follow this same format with any product for any industry.
Mon Fit Mon Kit uses fashion matching and personalized care to encourage consumers to purchase specific clothing and accessory items.
If you sell tech gadgets, then you can follow in the footsteps of PlayStation by showing how people can use their products effectively and in unique ways.
There are four ways that you can use to measure the value and success of your product.
- Direct value that shows you can help others save or make money.
- Additional value that makes life easier for your consumers.
- Influential value that offers more authenticity to the proposed transaction.
- Innovation value that puts you on the cutting edge of your industry.
Whether you choose to create a long-form sales page, an informational video, or some other form of content, the goal must be to give consumers a broader context about what you offer.
When you can do so, then you will allow each reader or viewer to consider even more reasons why your stuff is the best.
That ultimately leads to a better conversion rate over time.
5. Organic traffic will only take you so far in the world of social media.
The reason why companies like to create social media posts for their goods or services is that you can generate traffic for free.
It costs nothing to sign up for Facebook, create a business page, and then start promoting your company.
When you receive traffic from your preferred social media platform, each click indicates interest in what you offer.
That means there is a better chance to gain a sale.
Organic traffic can only reach so many people. There are over 2 billion profiles on Facebook right now.
Even if you have 10,000 likes on your page, how many people will actually see the post you just created that promotes your best-selling item?
That is why paid ads on social media is a reasonable marketing expense to consider.
Each platform will promote your content or create ads that provide higher visibility levels to your posts.
When there are more people in your targeted demographics viewing your products, then you will improve the overall number of customers you receive in time.
You can even customize your advertising by displaying products which users recently viewed on your website.
This structure will keep your brand at the top of their mind, enticing them to make a purchase later on if they are not ready to so at this moment.
LoveBook used paid ads on Facebook to encourage people to build an account on their profile.
The eventual goal was to have them purchase a customized book for a loved one.
Their work created a 57% increase in return on their ad spending with video content while achieving a 53% lower cost per action compared to their other channels.
If you can tell a story with each post, then you will generate interest.
Even though sometimes you might need to pay for that exposure, your ROI will benefit from the effort at the end of the day.
6. Simplify the purchasing process whenever possible.
When you make the buying process as simple as possible, then you are more likely to generate a conversion.
Every time there is an extra step between the initial click and the order confirmation, you are increasing the risk of losing a sale.
When Amazon created one-click sales on its website, it changed everything about what an e-commerce solution could be for consumers.
They secured the patent to this process in 1999 to encourage hassle-free shopping.
Since their exclusive rights expired in 2017, everyone can use this feature to optimize the shopping process.
Apple found the one-click shopping to be so enticing that they began to license the technology from Amazon in 2000 for iTunes purchases.
Although the one-click design does not allow you to track sales funnel data, you don’t need to have this information with this option.
People will leave your site because they are not interested in the product with this technology.
It is only when you have multiple clicks that are necessary to complete a sale where the analytics of abandonment become important to know.
You also gain the advantage of having customers input their information to create an account with the one-click method
That doesn’t mean a multi-step checkout process is out-of-date.
It simply means that you must manage it more effectively.
With extra steps, you can create a guest checkout process to avoid the need to create a customer account.
You can collect emails, offer a cleaner layout, and leverage the power of analytics in your favor.
The best practice for social media sales is to have no more than four clicks between the initial exposure to your brand or product and the completion of the order.
If you require someone to fill out a survey before completing that process will only increase your bounce rate.
By using options like Buyable Pins, you can reduce the time it takes to checkout without removing critical data points like the availability or price of a product.
Is Social Media the Best Marketing Option for Your Business?
People used to say that 97% of local business searches happened through the Yellow Pages.
Now the same percentage of individuals are using online options to find information about a local business.
Social media is more than an e-commerce platform that promotes a stronger ROI.
It can also help local customers find where you are so that they can shop with you in person.
Even if the only data they can find online is your company’s address and phone number, it can lead to better income outcomes in the future.
The ideas above are some of the most robust and impactful ways that your business can increase your ROI with social media.
As with most marketing efforts, the primary goal is to win over the trust of your targeted demographics by working with other people.
Customers and influencers can convey authenticity to people who are on the fence about your products much more effectively than you can.
You must also ensure that your brand is visible to your targeted audience to keep your ROI healthy.
Marketing your products to people who are not interested in what you have will always be a waste of good money.
Use your content to entice, and then compel potential customers to try your product.
Then make it as easy as possible to finish the purchasing process so that there are no excuses to abandon the sale.
Your goal should be to minimize any hassles that could stop someone from changing their mind.
The goal of your social media presence is to start telling your story.
When others can relate to this message, then you will begin to build an active community that remains interested in what you can offer.
Over time, that will often translate into a better ROI.
