Using social media as a promotional channel, engaging with customers and getting direct feedback from your clients is great, but even as a small or medium business, social networks can do more: they can actually impact your bottom line! While there are many ways to sell to you customers on many networks, in this article, we are going to give you 8 tips on how to increase the sales of your product or service on Facebook.
1. Complete your Facebook profile
In today’s online environment, it is very probable that your clients have other options than buying just your service or product. It is your duty to make your business look serious, professional an open to new customers: on Facebook this means giving as much information on your enterprise as possible. Fill out the “About” section on Facebook with all the details your customers need to find you, get in touch and buy your products or services. Make sure to add all the information needed to easily contact you:
- Your address (especially important for local businesses),
- A phone number people can actually reach your business,
- An e-mail address,
- A website (can be a link to your online store),
- Opening hours of your business.
The more information you give (description, milestones, awards, price range), the more trust you will generate and encourage your Facebook fans to turn into customers.
2. Add a call to action in your profile
Call to actions are a new addition to the Facebook page. While they still seem underdeveloped at the moment (they are just a bit more than a button), it is likely Facebook will add more options soon. In any case, make sure to take the opportunity and add a call to action button to your profile.
Once set up, you can promote the call to action, see insights and edit the message freely to experiment on the different outcomes.
3. Get 100 likes
Usually I don’t recommend SMBs to focus too much on “likes”. Especially local businesses can benefit from Facebook without the need of thousands of page likes. However, some very useful features for pages only unlock after a certain threshold of likes. You can only claim a custom URL after 25 likes, access your insights after 30 likes, and add Facebook offers after 50 likes. So before promoting your new Facebook page, try to get 100 fans to unlock all features and optimise your page and postings.
4. Enable private messages
By default, private messages for new Facebook pages are disabled. If you enable this feature, customers will not only be able to contact you via Facebook, but will also allow you to talk directly to your clients. Facebook hinted more than once at their plans to allow selling via messenger in the future and getting your fans accustomed to talking to you directly via this channel can only help the process.
If you are particularly keen on your image and want to show off your customer service, respond to private messages within 5 minutes and respond to more than 90% of private messages within a week and you will get the “very responsive” badge of approval for your page! So make sure to turn on messages and respond to all of them!
5. Show off your products and services
If you are serious about increasing your sales on Facebook and more generally via social media, you have to tell your fans the story of why they need your product or service. Automatically posting a non-optimised photo of your newest addition in your online store will not help your bottom-line, on the contrary. If you want to drive sales via social media, tell the story of why your fans need your product or service and how it solves their problems. Use good visuals to accompany your posts, adapt your tonality to your audience, link directly to the product you advertise (and not the general storefront) and basically just make buying as compelling as possible for your Facebook audience.
One nice effect to show your series of products is to create a carousel slider gallery with multiple photos and links.
6. Create smart advertising campaigns
Explaining how to take full advantage of the Facebook Power Editor and advertising possibilities will take an entire article of its own. Paid advertising in Facebook can definitely be profitable and not only increase your visibility, but also your sales – however it can also be costly if you don’t use the system smartly. Here are a few tips:
- Start with a small budget. If you want ads to actually make you money, you will have to experiment with different settings,
- Think about your visuals – don’t just chose the first stock-image your find but images that truly represent your products or services,
- Start with a small to medium target group. If you are a local business, target the region around your sales points,
- Keep the ad running for at least two weeks in order to collect enough number to get a representative view on your success,
- Include a clear call to action: if you want your customers to buy your product or service, tell them how to do it!
Facebook ads can significantly boost your sales – try it out and experiment with the Facebook, Power Editor to find your perfect audience!
7. Create special offers for your Facebook fans
Once your page accumulates 50 likes and exists longer than a month you can publish special offers for your fans. You can give special discounts for your fans, define the number of available offers and limit the offer in time. Facebook users can claim the special bonus via your offer, and share comment and like it.
Facebook offers is a great way to nourish an existing community, reward your fans for their trust and attract more people to your Facebook page as well as to your local store – all while boosting your sales!
8. Sell directly in Facebook
If you are selling physical consumer goods and want to have an ever deeper integration with Facebook why not set up your shop directly on your page? Shopify offers an easy to manage shop integration for Facebook, which allows you to sell directly to your customers from your Facebook page. You can add “buy” buttons on your page, website or blog, create special pages for each product with a simple checkout process – and it all works on mobile.
Smart community building and a basic investment can generate quite a few new sales via Facebook. It take a bit more time to set up successful ad campaigns, but if you want to reach out to new audiences, you have to experiment, and the largest social network on the planet surely is a great place to find new customers!
Author: Jerry Weyer, Partner at Clement & Weyer Digital Communication Consultants
