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When you own a small business, you know that it’s much more than a way to make a living.
When you start your own company, it’s because you love what you do and because you are passionate about the work you do and the services and products you provide.
It means, in other words, that your business is also your baby — and you are willing to invest your blood, sweat, and tears into ensuring that your baby grows, survives, and thrives.
Today, however, owning and operating a successful business is more complicated than perhaps it has ever been. The marketplace is increasingly crowded and competitive, and the economy is, at best, uncertain.
The good news is that savvy entrepreneurs also have more and better resources at their disposal than ever before. Perhaps the greatest of these lies in the power of social media to galvanize sales.
This article describes the best tips and tricks you can implement today to turn your social media platforms into an immensely effective sales funnel.
Table of Contents
What Is a Sales Funnel and Why Should You Care?
The concept of a sales funnel is pretty simple. It refers to the tools and techniques you use to direct existing and prospective customers to a point of sale, whether a physical storefront, kiosk, or digital sales platform.
Creating an effective sales funnel is essential for converting promising prospects into paying customers. The key to optimizing your sales funnel is understanding where to find your target customer and how to smooth the path to purchase for them. This is where the true power and potential of social media shine through.
Social Media as an Advertising Tool
By far, one of the most significant benefits of social media is that it is superb advertising. For relatively little cost, you can expand your global market reach.
And that means that with a bit of strategy and commitment, you can use your social media to boost brand awareness and galvanize customer interest.
For instance, if you are targeting the young adult demographic, building a robust presence on the platforms millennials and Generation Z use most, such as Instagram, will be an ideal way to promote your brand and market your products.
You can, for example, create influencer videos to introduce, demo, and review new products.
You can even stoke demand by transforming a new product or service launch into a social media event.
For example, you could hold an “online watch party” and promote it heavily across your social media platforms and through direct email marketing to existing customers and subscribers.
Fostering Engagement
Doing business today is far different from 20, 15, or even 10 years ago.
Today’s consumers want far more than just a great product at a reasonable price. They expect engagement and relationships.
They expect the businesses they support to be highly responsive to and reflect their needs, interests, and values. And this is yet another arena where social media’s unique and profound capabilities come to the fore.
Social media platforms allow business leaders to interact with their customers and prospects in ways that were once unthinkable.
Today, for instance, you can respond to customer feedback, address their queries, and even resolve their complaints in real-time.
And that means that you are more likely to rapidly and substantially grow your customer base and promote customer loyalty and facilitate electronic word-of-mouth.
After all, when your customers’ friends, family, and followers see who and what they’re engaged with on social media, they will probably join in.
There’s even a term for this: it’s called social shopping. It reflects the reality that today’s consumers are increasingly influenced by the power of social media when it comes to their shopping habits.
They’re more likely, for example, to engage with businesses that have positive online reviews and robust online content and to avoid those with negative reviews or an anemic digital presence.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, the capacity for engagement through social media means that opportunities for starting a successful business or growing your freelancing enterprise have perhaps never been more abundant or promising.
Social media gives those who want to quit their jobs and start working for themselves an immediate connection with customers and a direct link to their target market.
This provides an ideal channel for raising brand awareness, promoting your products and services, identifying new business opportunities, and conducting research.
No longer must you invest a king’s ransom in advertising and market research. You no longer have to break the bank to rent a storefront or office space.
Now, through social media, you can connect with your customers, promote your products and services, analyze your target market, and optimize your sales funnels. And that means that business ownership is more affordable and accessible than ever before.
The Takeaway
Social media has changed how we live, engage with one another, and seek entertainment.
But it’s done even more than that. It’s also transformed how we do business, connect with customers, and create and optimize the sales funnel.
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