This article covers:?Learning how to create a social media strategy to boost your online sales and find marketing success with your company!
So, you’ve just launched social media pages for your business and might be wondering, how do I actually sell on here?
Or, you may already have an Instagram business page where you?ve been trying to sell your services or products but keep coming up short. This could leave you wondering if social media is even worth it because you?ve been working hard and keep struggling to hit your goals.
The question is — how do you go from launching your social media business accounts to having a successful digital platform that acquires new leads and converts them to buyers?
My simple answer to this is to create a social media strategy that has objectives, goals and maps out a story or process for your ideal audience.
How to Create a Social Media Strategy to Boost Your Online Sales? Let’s Start With WHAT a Social Media Strategy is?
In my first business I had no idea just how important a strategic plan was. When we created something, it was fly by the seat and not carefully thought out. There was always confusion and none of my thoughts were attached to a long-term goal or a bigger vision.
It wasn’t until I started to map out a path on how to hit my goals, and started to plan out a process, that things felt right. Writing out a business plan and learning how to create a social media and digital marketing strategy was also one thing really levelled up the playing field.
Why? Because getting strategic means understanding what your audience really needs so you can come up with a plan that speaks to them.
Social media and digital marketing strategies are simply plans that map out a path your ideal audience will take in order to better understand your brand. The goal is to build trust, which ultimately leads to valued customers and repeat purchases.
Here’s How to Map Out Your Social Media Strategy in 4 Simple Steps:
Step 1: Know your Audience & Your Core Message
Without having a deep understanding of your audience, your audience’s problems and what they are looking for, you simply won’t be able to connect with them enough to have them make continuous purchases from you.
Understanding who your audience is first requires you to truly understand your own brand, your niche, and what kind of person you want to target (AKA your target demographic or ideal audience).
Whether it’s a health enthusiast that has a diet primarily of whole, unprocessed foods, or someone who has gut issues and needs to avoid gluten, the deeper you can get into the mindset of your audience, the more likely it is that you can build a message that gets personal.
Everyone wants to be understood, it’s up to you to build a social media strategy that showcases your deep understanding of your audience.
Answer these key questions to start mapping out your ideal audience’s user profile and the message you want to send them:
- Who is your audience? Are they mothers, single, concerned with their health, busy, active, stressed? What emotions do they go through on a day-to-day basis?
- What age group is your audience? What generation do they fit into? Are they millennials, Gen Z, baby boomers? The message you curate will differ based off of what age gap they are in.
- What is your audience’s biggest problem? What do they fear?
- What are the primary features and benefits of your product or service? How do they connect with your audience’s problems?
Step 2: Understand What Touchpoints You Want Your Audience to Follow
A touchpoint is simply a point of interaction that you or your business will have with your ideal audience.
For example, an email, an Instagram post or story, a Facebook ad, a live event, a free consultation call. A touchpoint is any place that you have an interaction with your audience, virtually or in person.
Though the data changes all of the time, most expert marketers say that it can take up to 10 touchpoints before a customer is likely to buy. This means that a single blog post or email sequence probably won’t be enough motivation for your audience to purchase from you.
Think about the type of content you want to put out there, how you’re going to lead your audience on a journey that ends with them making a purchase.
Remember, recycle content to emphasize your point. If you write a blog post you can put it into an email sequence, social media posts, a webinar? you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to be intentional with your content.
Step 3: Sell by Solving a Problem
If you’re wondering how to create a social media strategy that’s impactful, then you’ll need to understand your core message and how your message is solving your audience’s main problems.
Problems could range from losing weight, to reducing chronic symptoms to growing a business, etc., your businesses social media content becomes virtually pointless if it doesn’t solve problems.
There needs to be an end goal and when it comes to building a business, a social media strategy with a plan behind it always does better.
So really think about what your product does for your ideal customer and take them on a journey to get them to a point of purchase. Build content that taps into their psyche and solves their biggest problems.
Here are 5 ways you can start building social media messages that solves problems:
- Write down the biggest pain points and problems that your ideal customer has
- Then write down your product or services features or benefits
- Now connect the dots, how does your service solve those problems and connect to those pain points
- Brainstorm the message behind your offer and how you want to connect with your audience
- Come up with 10 social media post ideas that deliver on that message with the end ‘goal’ to guide the ideal customer or client to the point of purchase
Step 4: Deliver a Call to Action on Your Social Media Posts
Do you have a goal with your content? If not, you should! Every post you create, every email you send, and every piece of information you put out there in the world should have a goal (or call to action).
For example, the Call to Action in this blog post is to guide you to my services page and have a peek at my Social Media Strategy package.
Is your goal to drive traffic to your blog? To build an email list? To sell a product? To get new leads? To offer a free incentive? To build engagement?
Call to actions help guide your audience to engage with your content somewhere else and provides another touchpoint so that you can build on that trust.
Make sure you provide a call to action on your posts, here are some examples you can use to create better actionable content:
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Think of your call-to-actions as a way to hold hands with your ideal audience to lead them to the next place, whether it’s a direct purchase or warming them up with more content so they can start to trust you.
Now you have the groundwork to start building your social media and digital marketing strategies. There will always be more to consider but this is definitely the best place to start.
And as always, if you need help, feel free to check out what services we offer and some of the brands that we’ve worked with.
You can also book in a free consultation call here.
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