My Facebook Marketing PlanAs with any business endeavor you need a plan and especially for your marketingstrategy since you have so many options open to you that you would be hard pressed tokeep track of everything without a plan to make sure you are heading in the rightdirection.The Target MarketAs already mentioned, the Facebook demographic is extremely diverse and you havethe added advantage of being able to use peoples profiles to further narrow your targetmarket down. For example, if you want to target women aged 24 - 35 who live in theMidwest and love to crochet, Facebook makes it extremely easy to do. The advantage?You can be certain you arent wasting resources, whether money or time, on reaching awide audience of which only a small percentage is actually your target market, as wasoften the case with traditional marketing channels.Remember that the key to building a successful business is to have an excellentunderstanding of your target market. The more you know about them, the easier it willbe to build a relationship with them.Consumer behavior, in simple terms, is driven mainly by two desires, the first is to avoidpain and the second is to gain pleasure. However, pain avoidance carries much moreweight. Therefore, the more you know of your audience and what pains them, the moreyou will be able to meet their needs by providing a solution to their pain. In fact, if you doyour market research properly, you will be able to create a product that sells itself. Thisis where the power of knowing your target market truly lies.What better way to build a relationship with your target market than through a socialmedia platform that allows for so much interaction, like Facebook?There are a few tools you can use to locate your target market. One of these is theFacebook Insight tool which provides information on the people visiting your page,including information such as their age and sex.Establishing Your Marketing GoalsFacebook is an essential marketing tool that you need to integrate into your overallmarketing strategy for the simple reason that you can glean a lot of information fromyour market. From product creation to feedback on your service, Facebook can be theultimate market research tool, and you can achieve all this without paying a penny.In essence, the core goal of any marketing campaign is to increase sales. However,there are other aspects to increasing your sales which, initially, may not appear to bedirectly linked to increasing your profitability. But they are, and can boost your salesmore effectively than even a Super Bowl advertising campaign.These are building a brand, forming a community of prospects who are raving fans,providing customer service and receiving feedback on your business. These fouraspects are vital to building a sustainable business model that will generate an incomefor you for many years.The Power of BrandingA brand is basically the image of your business. Its what sets you apart from yourcompetition in the mind of your target market. Thus, the key to branding is finding yourUSP (unique sales position/proposition), which you can actually do with the help ofexisting customers. Simply conduct a survey and ask why people are buying yourproduct or using your service and not the competitions.If you do not yet have a product and are just starting your business, then you shouldanalyze your competition and identify what their USP is. This will give you some idea ofwhat you can do to add extra value and find your USP. Remember never to use price asa USP as this can backfire.Driving Sales with FacebookFacebook is an ideal tool to drive sales as it offers an excellent medium to inform youraudience about special offers, product launches, discounts and more. You can easilyprovide a link so people can access your website or you can even build a store rightthere inside Facebook.Facebook is also a highly cost-efficient advertising medium as you can run highlytargeted campaigns that have a high ROI as it has been proven that social mediaaudiences have a higher conversion rate than organic traffic.Additionally, you can also use Facebook Events to drive sales and increase brandawareness.Building Your CommunityBuilding a community is vital to your online business success, especially if you want thatsuccess to be long-lasting. Facebook Groups gives you that option but remember thatyour group cant be build around your product or no one will be interested. You need tofocus on building a group centered around a cause or interest that ties in with your goalsyet has social importance to draw people to join.Customer Service and FeedbackProviding excellent customer service and listening to feedback from your customers isvital to the success of any product or business. The more feedback you receive, themore you can improve and meet the needs of your prospects. You can receive feedbackdirectly through a Facebook group or by running a manual search on the platform to findany mentions of your brand.The more responsive you are to your markets needs, the more they will appreciate yourbrand and the more they will advertise for you through referrals and recommendations.There is nothing more valuable in a social media setting than having your Facebookfans recommending your business as this is the place people come to research beforethey make their purchase decision.Creating a MessageThis is the moment when you need to forget all you learned in your power-selling andadvertising courses about hard selling. This simply does not work in a social mediasetting. You need to be honest and open with your market and above all you need toprovide value first and ask later. In other words, dont try to push sales messages downthe throat of your Facebook followers because you may soon find yourself alone.Facebook is primarily a social platform, which you need to remember whenimplementing your marketing strategy. This means that you need to engage youraudience rather than merely trying to push offers at them all the time. The more valueyou provide, the more your audience will trust you and the higher your profits will climb.
Creating a PageA Facebook Page is essentially the same as a Facebook profile except that it isbusiness centric. This is where members can become your fans and stay up-to-datewith everything that your business is doing. They can also write on your Wall, learnabout any special promotions you are running, upload photos and talk to othermembers. It is where you can provide your fans with updates and engage youraudience.The advantage to having a Facebook Page for your business is that you are not limitedto the number of fans your business can have, unlike Facebook profiles which arelimited to 5,000 friends. Additionally, Facebook Pages can be easily found with a searchengine as they are visible to the public by default. You can also add a variety ofapplications to further engage your audience.Tips for Effective Page DesignWhile we wont be going into the technicalities of creating a Facebook Page, we will lookat some critical tips that you should keep in mind when designing it. Customers come first. You need to make sure that you are designing your page withyour customers in mind, which means that every component of your page should offerthem value. Dont overdo it. While you may be tempted to add every application under the sun tomake a cutting edge Facebook page, a little restraint is in order. Remember that youwant your brand to stand out and applications should only add to the experience, nottake the spotlight off your business. Staying on topic and updating. You need to make sure that whatever you post onyour Facebook Page is relevant to your business. So, if you are promoting an internetmarketing product, you shouldnt be posting about your love for sushi. Likewise, if youcontinuously update the content on your Page, you are giving fans a reason to comeback. So, make sure that you are always posting fresh content. Brand yourself as an authority with personality. First of all, your Facebook Pageadvertises your business to the world, so you need to be seen as an authority in yourindustry. Therefore, make sure that your content showcases your expertise. At the sametime, Facebook is a social media site which means you need to let your personalitycome through a little. While having a little fun is great, make sure that you still actprofessionally, though. Feedback is critical to your success. The biggest mistake you can make is tooverlook the feedback you receive through your Facebook Page. In fact, you should beencouraging it by posting surveys, polls and through discussions. It is highly valuablebecause it can be used to improve your business and its all for free.However, the most critical aspect of an effective Facebook Page, as with any otherpresence you may have on the web is posting relevant and interesting content. Themore you update with interesting content, the more reasons people will have to visityour page, become fans and then return. Your job doesnt end once you have built a following. It only begins.
Promoting Your PagePeople will not become instant fans of your brand, even if its a product they adore anduse regularly, if you dont offer them a reason to. In other words, you need to engagepeople and offer them an incentive to become your fans.Some of the most common tactics include contests that require users to sign up to takepart with prizes ranging from products to gift certificates, or offering discount coupons tothose who join. The advantage to these methods is that once a customer agrees toinput their Facebook information, a link to the contest will then be published on their wallas well, which leads to the contest becoming viral.If you cannot afford to offer discounts or giveaways, another option is to simply ask yourcustomers to become your Facebook fans. You can do this by advertising your socialmedia pages on all your outgoing emails, existing websites and other advertisingmediums you may already be using. You might be surprised how effective this approachis.Remember that having a large following on Facebook is not simply about increasingsales but about increasing brand awareness as well. The more people are talking aboutyour brand, the more sales you will eventually make because word of mouth advertisingis one of the most powerful sales tools in the world.Another interesting strategy is to use social media sites in a loyalty program. Forexample, you could offer customers two points for every purchase they make from youand another point if they become a fan and post about their purchase on their Facebookaccount. Once they reach a certain number of points you can offer them a freebie ofsome sort. The traffic and sales you generate will more than offset the costs of runningthe campaign and you will have the added advantage of having built a loyal following aswell.Tips to Help You Find and Connect to Your Target MarketThe first step to building your fan-base on Facebook is to invite your friends and existingclients to join up. Even if your friends arent what you may consider prospects, younever know who in their networks might be interested. Some other techniques you canuse include: Leveraging thought leaders in your industry. By becoming a fan of thought leaderswith large fan bases in your industry you can begin to engage with prospects on theirpages. If you provide value through good content, you will find that people will want tofind out more about you and your brand. Use other social media platforms and sites. Do you have a following on Twitter?Then invite them to join you on Facebook for a more interactive experience.Additionally, you can also pull content from sites like Youtube and Flickr which will keepyour page fresh with new content while also promoting your page on these other sites. Leverage your email list. If you have an email list, offer your subscribers an incentiveto become a fan of your Facebook page. Remember that your main goal is the viraleffect Facebook provides and even though these customers are already on your list,you never know how many more new leads they will generate through their ownFacebook networks. Offer interesting content on a regular basis. You need to make sure you keep yourpage updated with interesting content on a regular basis. You want fans to visit yourpage and engage with your brand on a regular basis and the only way to do that is toprovide fresh, interesting content. Interact with your fans. Dont simply post content and then forget to visit your page.You need to interact with your fans as much as possible which includes answeringcomments and even sending new fans a welcome message can do wonders to turnthem into lifelong, loyal customers. This is because you are showing them that there is ahuman behind the brand and that you care. You would be surprised how much peoplewant to help someone who is interested in them.
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