Drive Sales For Your Small Business with Social Media

Sales

Jun 3

Earlier this year, I had the incredible opportunity to speak at ASD Market Week, a must-attend event for small business owners like us, especially those of us in the consumer products game.

This event was huge, with over 20,000 attendees and business owners coming together to explore everything from cosmetics to toys to jewelry. Additionally, there was this special stage curated by my friend Tiffany Hardin at Gild Creative Group that was all about giving entrepreneurs the tools to sell smarter and market their businesses more effectively.

When Tiffany initially asked me to speak, I was stumped at first about what to share. Working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, I feel like I’ve seen it all - every challenge, every unique problem. How can I actually find one topic that would be meaningful to each person sitting in a chair in the audience? It took me a while, but then it hit me. What’s the one thing all small business owners need? Revenue.

We're all in this entrepreneurial journey for the passion, sure, but at the end of the day, it's about making enough money to pay our bills and curate the life we want to live. So, I asked myself, how can I help my fellow small business owners increase their revenue?

The answer led me to create a brand-new talk titled, "Beyond Virality: How To Use Your Social Media Success To Generate Sales For Your Business." This idea sparked from the news about the Solo Steve x Snoop Dogg campaign and how the brand wasn’t able to generate sales, although it generated a ton of awareness. It made me think - if giant brands who are spending thousands of dollars in advertising and marketing fees struggle to convert social media into sales, what about us smaller players?

I focused on a key message: influencers are great for getting the word out, but relying solely on viral posts for sales is a gamble. Instead, we need to put on our marketing hats and craft what's known in marketing circles as "nurturing campaigns."

Think of a nurturing campaign as a journey you guide your audience through, step by step, leading them closer to making a purchase. This journey typically has four stages:

Awareness: When people first discover your brand.
Consideration: When they're thinking over their options - you or the competition.
Decision: When they decide to buy from you.
Loyalty: When they can't stop talking about your products and come back for more.

(I share more about the different marketing tactics you can use at various stages of your sales funnel here.)

We often use social media just to create buzz. But how do we move beyond that? How do you get people to seriously consider your products, spend their money, and then brag about you?

Enter the nurturing campaigns. They're all about recognizing where your audience is in their journey and serving them content that speaks directly to their interests and needs. For example, if I'm selling customizable journals, I'd showcase them on Instagram during the awareness phase, maybe even collaborate with influencers to spread the word further.

For those in the consideration phase, visiting my website or subscribed to my newsletter, I'd share why my journals are the preferred choice compared to other popular brands. I'd tell the story behind their creation, highlight if they're eco-friendly, and perhaps share a blog post or newsletter filled with customization ideas tailored to different professions or personal interests.

This stage is crucial for instilling trust into your potential customers and measuring the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. You'll want to keep an eye on website metrics like page visit durations, cart contents, what social platforms your customers are coming from, and click-through rates for your newsletter. And let's not forget about sales - the ultimate metric. To keep tabs on all these, Google Analytics can be your best friend. It's a no-cost tool that lets you see who's visiting your site, what they're looking at, and how they're interacting with your content, in the simplest terms.

So, what should you take away from all this?

Influencers alone won't drive your sales.
Effective marketing (and sales) is all about building solid nurturing campaigns.
Tailor your content to meet your potential customers wherever they are in their buying journey.
Data is your storyteller. Dive into it regularly to see which marketing moves are actually paying off, then double down on those strategies.

Ready to turn those likes and follows into actual sales?