6 tips to convert Facebook fans into sales
July 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
Helen Fang has been working in social media and e-commerce space for the past six years and is Vendio’s marketing manager. Vendio offers e-commerce software solutions including a free online store, free shopping cart software and the tools for selling on Facebook through an integrated store.
Today Helen has shared six tips for converting your Facebook fans into sales:
Using Facebook to Increase Sales: A Little Can Go a Long Way
So you created a Facebook page for your business—congrats! But now what? How can you get fans? And more importantly: how can you convert those fans into sales? There are plenty of creative ways to grow your fan count, but lets start with the basics, shall we?
1) Add widgets to your website
Seems simple enough, but you’d be surprised to learn how many companies forget to promote their Facebook page at the most basic level. You can choose from many different widgets, so pick one that works well for your business.
2)Send out an email blast
Have a weekly or monthly newsletter? Great! Add “Like us on Facebook!” to your next issue, helping you gain fans who are, well, already fans.
3) Just tell people about it!
When a customer checks out on your site, ask if they know you’re on Facebook. Add it to your invoices and business cards. Heck, got a company vehicle? Put a “Like us on Facebook!” decal on the back of it. If people already love what you do, a little promotion can go a long way.
Now that you’ve got a decent fan base, how do you turn those fans into sales? You could always try the age-old method of spamming them with “buy our products!” but we recommend the following tactics:
4) Post, and post often
Remember the phrase “If you build it, they will come”? Well, it may have worked swimmingly for brick and mortar stores in the past, but in the world of social networks, it’s simply not an option.
Make posts daily. They don’t have to relate to your business completely. In fact, they typically shouldn’t; nobody likes a spammy, self-promoting business. Post about local happenings, related topics and ask fans questions.
5) Engage, engage, engage
We can’t stress this enough: A Facebook community is a two way street. If a fan asks a question on your wall, answer them. If you ask a question in a post and fans answer, respond.
And make sure to let your personality shine though. A huge part of a successful community is showing fans the voice behind the business. They want to feel closer to you, so let them in.
Have fun with it, and your fans will have fun too. Show your fans you care about what they have to say: this is where the bonds of brand loyalty can be sealed.
6) Run contests
Competitions
A long time ago I had some mugs made up with my eBay ID on them and gave a couple to eBay employees. Everyone on the UK PowerSeller board wanted one of my mugs…. I sold a lot of printers that month.
-Chris Dawson
People love free things. Whether it’s a t-shirt, a dinner or even a sticker, it’s a fact of life. Try some quick, frequent and on-the-fly contests.
Asking fans to post their thoughts or favorites of something and picking a favorite as a winner, awarding them with something small (and branded!) can do wonders for not only inducing brand loyalty, but also growing your fan base.
I just won a t-shirt. Of course I’m going to brag to my friends! Now they want to win one too, and how can they? Become a fan of your page, of course.
Follow the tips
Following these six tips will have you well on your way to increasing brand loyalty between your business and your fans. When fans feel their voices being heard by a company, they can become fiercely loyal, resulting in not only their choosing you over your competitors, but also turning them into your own little brand ambassadors, thus increasing your sales.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get some fans. Happy Facebook-ing!
If you would like to connect with Helen and the rest of the Vendio team you can follow Vendio on twitter or check them out on Facebook!
I’m struggling a little with my facebook page. I think I’ll do the like us on facebook with my out going e-mails on my website. How do you get the address details for competitions on facebook, do you get enterants to message you there details?
@Warren
Unfortunately, you can’t get details for your competitors’ fans on Facebook. However, what you CAN do – and this is extremely powerful – is you CAN target them via Facebook ads.
Let me know if I can be of any help.
Best regards, Helen
@Vendio
All sounds good, but im not sure tho, proof is in the pudding so they say, so why has vendios only got 64 people who like them, not gud at all, and these are people who say they are the experts and by the sound of what they say they are…. the figures speak for themselfs
out of those 64 people you may get a few sales every now and again yes but not much realy, now if you can show us how to get 64 people liking us everyday for the next year, so that would be 23360 liking us in a year then I think you may get some sales worth talking about.
And yes I am a facebook user and log in about 4 times a day on both my laptop and my mobile phone, so I use facebook a lot.
@Terry
Great point! The reason we only have 64 likes on our Facebook fan page is because up until very recently, Vendio hasn’t needed a fan page. Our main source of Facebook activity was on our app page, located here:
http://www.facebook.com/VendioStores
Furthermore, from a marketing perspective, Vendio hasn’t focused too much effort on social media. We definitely leverage it to communicate to our customer and answer questions, but we do not actively market via these channels.
Lastly, I do think it’s quite a bit different marketing B2B (like Vendio) versus B2C. I think that you CAN use Facebook for B2B marketing – but your dollars are better spent elsewhere. B2C marketing, however, is a totally different ballgame. That serves as the impetus for this post.
Best regards, Helen
My problem with facebook is that I don’t like Zuckerberg.
Hi Stefan, I followed the link to your website. Is Squidoo like a social media website? Can you use it much like facebook?
You can update your The Find badge and become an upfront merchant.
@Stefan
Well, there’s always Google+
How does the cost-benefit work out? Don’t forget to pay yourself a wage.
Facebook’s business model is to sell their users info to advertisers, big bucks advertisers not us eBay/Amazon/small website types. Everyone who likes your page will be directed to a competing company spending big advertising bucks. Unless you are very lucky, hardworking and ruthless all the longterm effect of taking advantage of Facebook’s ‘free’ promotion will be to direct your customers to your larger competitors.
That’s how it works folks.
This Vendio promoting piece of tips are straight out of the first class of web marketing for dummies available on day one at your local college. It’s all BS and if you can’t work it out for yourself go get a proper job.
Spam your customers with an email every week, spend an hour writing it and piss some of them off. Spend fifteen minutes a day composing a nice little story to post. Think I’m exaggerating the time taken, I doubt it. Spell check and grammar check everything manually at least twice otherwise you create the impression that you can’t be bothered. And you have to find unique content to write about, that may take some time (you can’t write about the cat every day). Don’t forget to pay yourself wages and take them out of the profits from the additional sales.
Use some of those profits for reprinting business cards with like us on Facebook added, and PVC stickers for the van (back and both sides).
Shouldn’t Facebook pay you for advertising them?
Do something every day and you can’t stop without it having a negative effect. Maybe best not start. Give free stuff away, sure that’s a winner, make it up in volume (/sarcasm). Answer every comment that some idiot writes on your wall, think answering eBay questions is bad, wait till you try this.
“Shouldn’t Facebook pay you for advertising them?”
Facebook are one of the most popular websites in the world and there users run into millions, maybe billions. If you play the game right you can reach an extended customer base with no layout at all. Its just finding something that works, but I’ve not found it yet.