How to Get Your Social Traffic into Your Sales Funnel

Funnel

With a massive 95% of millennials following a brand on social media, it’s no wonder that it’s the golden child of today’s marketers. Social media marketing is an affordable, low-barrier way to build your brand and reach your audience – an active, engaged audience that wants to hear from you. 

But while some brands are great at garnering likes, shares and follows, they’re not necessarily managing to convert that interest into leads or sales. Too often users either stay in their social media silos or head to your site…and bounce. stellapop-click-to-tweet

Here’s how to adjust your social media marketing approach so that you can funnel user interest in a way that will positively impact your bottom line.

Figure Out Where You Stand

Before you make any changes, dive into your analytics to get a better picture of your current conversion rates. How much traffic is currently moving from social to your site, and how much of it is converting?

Ask yourself:

  • How are your social accounts performing?
  • Which platforms are driving the most traffic?
  • How is traffic flowing through your site?
  • How much traffic is reaching your sign up forms or e-commerce pages?
  • How well is that traffic converting?

Set Goals Based on Current Data

While the goal is to maximize conversions, you’ll want to set achievable targets. Once you hit those, you can always move the goal posts again. But going from 0 – 100 in seconds is for sports cars, not lead conversions!

To set achievable targets:

  • Compare your conversions against industry benchmarks
  • First aim to meet the industry average
  • Then increase your targets to be in the top 10% (or higher!)

Give yourself time to move up the conversions scale. Set goals of 0.5-1% over a 3-6 month period. At the end of each period, review your progress and revise your goals accordingly.

Build Conversions Into Your Funnel

Here’s the critical part – actually optimizing for conversion! It’s your job to guide your users to where you want them to go.

Try these options for capturing lead conversions:

  • Add a social media landing page newsletter sign-up – with email or social sign-up options
  • Add share buttons to your content – after the homepage splash (try your “thank you” page)

You can also make social media itself part of your sales funnel. Consider the following:

  • Awareness: Leverage free content, contests and paid ads. Participate in groups and chats.
  • Evaluation: Get reviews, host an AMA, share testimonials.
  • Acquisition: Use sign-ups, coupons, offer ads and buy buttons.
  • Engagement: Host chats, answer questions and link to high-performing content.
  • Advocacy: Create branded #hashtags for users to share.

Use Social Media With Intent to Convert

Social media is fundamentally about sharing, but as a business, you’re working within a slightly different framework of expectations. Your audience knows that you’re making, producing or selling something, so guide them towards it.

You can increase conversions by:

  • Adding an effective CTA to all of your posts
  • Focusing on your best-performing platforms (and optimizing messaging for each network)
  • Creating high-performing content: IG Story ads, social video and mini infographic
  • Posting at the right times
  • “Listening” to keywords and #hashtags and chiming in
  • Investing in retargeting ads (especially for the high-performing content or key pages)

To truly take advantage of social media’s marketing power, incorporate SM into all aspects of your sales funnel – and post with a purpose, not just to say you did!

Need help optimizing your social media conversions? Get in touch!

 

See Also:

Here’s Why Social Media is Like a Birthday Party

A Social Media Audit is not Scary, but Necessary

How to Build Buzz Around an Event or Product Launch

 

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