Why aren’t we seeing any sales happening through social media? Why aren’t we seeing Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Kora, the new MySpace, the new Digg.com, Reddit produce any sales for us? Sure, it’s producing click-throughs, some. We’re getting some traffic, but it’s not producing any sales and AdWords now is way too expensive.
Our competitors are Fortune 500 companies. Our competitors are household CPG consumer packaged goods brands. They’re international global corporations. We don’t have their marketing budget. Year over year, they can afford to lose a lot of money in the beginning, to start collecting data. They collect your e-mail address. They collect the time when you’re online. They collect all this big data about you to where it’s okay for them to pay $5.00 per click-through because they’re harnessing all this data and they won’t have to keep advertising after a certain point because they know everything about you. They know where you go. How do we make social media work for us? We’re a medium size corporation. We only have 100 employees or 200. We don’t have 3000 employees just on the West Coast alone.
The abbreviated form of that question would be why aren’t we producing sales through social media? The short answer is because you’re not selling. That’s it. If you’re not producing sales, it’s because you’re not selling.
What, then, is required to produce a sale through social media? Let’s take social media out of the picture. Let’s just go back to the basic principles and see, and once we do, once we analyze the basic core principles of how to produce a sale, then you’ll be able to… Oh, geez, I guess I wasn’t selling through social media is the conclusion we should come to. Let’s pull the media out of the way. Let’s pull the medium out of the way. Let’s pull the mechanics out of the way and just look at the overriding principles.
The key to sales … Let’s not even go there. Let’s do this from an even bigger perspective. Instead of just dealing with sales, let’s give it some context and deal with sales, marketing, and advertising. They are 3 totally different skill sets. They are 3 totally different endeavors. If you get all 3 right, then you can produce a sale. It’s like that. Let’s start with sales. The key to sales is follow-through. You’ve heard the expression … If you’ve taken any sales training seminars, it’s ABC, always be closing. Right? It’s follow-through. If you’re on social media and you’re sending out a Tweet, maybe it’s a discount Tweet. Buy now and you get 20% off. order 2.
Let’s say you’re doing content marketing, which is the new big bag apparently that people are just starting to realize that you have to have something valuable to say for people to start paying attention to you. There they go, they’re doing it, they’re doing content marketing and it’s the new biggest thing. You’ve Tweeted out something valuable, how to, I don’t know, how to shed 5 pounds on 2 minutes a day, investing your time on a real simple 2-minute-a-day workout, and you get all this traffic to your website, but how come it’s not producing any sales?
If this wasn’t Twitter, if this wasn’t Facebook or any social media site and you asked that same question, the same question would be formed, I took this flyer and I distributed it all over town. I put it on every park bench. I nailed the flyer to walls, How come I’m not getting any sales? Do you see what I’m saying? When you Tweet something, when you post a message to Facebook, that’s advertising. That’s not selling. It’s not even marketing. Okay, let’s go up a notch. What is marketing? Marketing is about social media marketing stats. Marketing is 100% purely … The core root of marketing, it’s a bachelor of science class. Marketing is a BS. It’s not a BA.
Marketing is about stats, it’s about taking measurements, it’s about metrics, it’s about numbers, it’s about data. You’re not doing marketing if you don’t know what your daily average unique visitors are, what your bounce rate is, what your click-through rate is, what your ROI is. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s all numbers. Money is a number. If you want apples, you’ve got to start with an apple seed. If you want to make money, you’ve got to start with more numbers. You have to know every single number, every point of contact from that same … the number of impressions to the number of click-throughs down to the number of seconds they stay on your page, down to the number of bounces, down to the peak time that someone will come on your website, and then the worst time for you to send out a message.
For instance, during the week, do you know when you’ll get the most return on your Facebook, Twitter message throughout the week? It’s about 8:15 in the morning. If you send out a message at 9:00 AM in the morning on Monday, everyone is in a production meeting. Literally, everyone is in a meeting. No one is going to read your message. If you send out a Tweet in the afternoon, everyone has got, what is it, sugar, the afternoon sugar crash. No one is going to do anything. They’re going to read your Tweet, kind of smile, and they won’t even have the energy to click on that link. They’re just totally zoned out. At the end of the week, no one is even at their computer. They’re already planning their weekend or talking to their girlfriend, their wife, their kids, their best friend, whatever. Monday mornings are the best time.
Do you know when is the best time to actually sell something? If you’re selling a product, for instance, on eBay or on Amazon or just your own e-commerce website, the best time to send out a message is Sunday afternoon, when they come back from lunch, they come back from shopping, they come back from Costco, Walmart, wherever they were, all the things that they didn’t buy. Sunday afternoon, right around 2:00 is the best time. Then the most number of sales that you get will be Sunday around 4:00-4:30 PM up to about 7:00 PM. You’ve got to be able to bounce around their favorite TV show time, and that includes cable now and that includes Internet viewing.
You see how numbers are that important? If you try and run a sale on a Wednesday afternoon, after they’ve had the worst day at the office or worst day at the shop or wherever your potential customer works, you’re not going to get them to pull out their wallet and pay you because they’ve had a terrible day. End of the month is a great big- right after they receive their check, right after they get their paycheck but before they pay their rent or their mortgage or their car payment. You see? Marketing is about numbers. You have to know these numbers to know when.
Okay, so now advertising. What is advertising? Advertising is about getting the message out in a way that’s the most compelling. Do you know the 5 most effective headlines or the 5 most effective messages that you can send out for someone to actually say, oh, that’s an interesting Tweet, that’s an interesting Facebook post, that’s an interesting, I don’t know, Pinterest headline. I’m going to click on that and see what that’s all about. Do you know what the 5 most highest CTR headlines are? That’s advertising. How to form a headline. The number-one biggest one is start anything with “how to.” Start anything with “how to” and anyone who actually cares to know how to do something like how to build a social media marketing campaign that gets you sales.
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Now, let’s get back down to sales. What is sales? If you’re thinking that you’re selling through social media or even social commerce by saying, hey, 20% off, 80% off, come here, buy one get one now, and you’re sending these messages out 5-6-7 times a day, 50 times a week, and you’re thinking that you’re selling online, you’re not. That’s as if a salesperson were to go up to a potential customer and say, “Okay, here’s the contract. Is everything to your liking?” The guy reads over the contract, “Yeah, I like all the details. I like the terms. Let’s do this. I want to buy from you, Joe or John or Jerry or Jim.” The salesman says, “Great. Here’s a pen. Bye-bye.”
Do you see what’s wrong with that? A salesman, how a salesman really works, a good closer, what he’ll do is say, “Okay, tell you what. If everything is to your liking, come on into my office. When you come in, on your way in, I’m going to talk with my supervisor, see if I can even sweeten the pot. I know you said you’d already do it. I know you said you’d already buy from me, but I just want to make sure that you can brag to all your buddies that you bought from me. I’m going to talk to my manager while you’re driving on the way into my office and see if I can …” Wow, paramedics.”See if I can’t sweeten the pot for you.”
Then he gets in and you hand him the pen and you point to the dotted line and you stare at him and create this uneasy silence until he signs on the dotted line. That’s follow-through. That’s ABC, always be closing. On Twitter, on Facebook, you’re saying “Oh, yeah, you like that special? You should go buy it. Try it.” What do they do? If you’re watching the server log, they’re not going to your website. They’re not pressing Add to Cart. They’re not filling out the contact form. They’re not becoming a lead because you’re not following through. That’s the most important thing in sales, right?
How do you do it? If you’re on Facebook or you’re on Twitter, say, okay, here’s the link to where you order. Is this exactly what you and I already sent back 12 or 14 different messages through Twitter and Facebook about the details of the product that you wanted? Yeah, it is? Okay, great. Then come over here to the website and I’m actually going to sit there on the other side of the point of sale. There’s no cash register; it’s just your e-commerce merchant account or your PayPal account. Say I’m actually going to sit on the inbox and make sure that your order goes through. Now, you’re putting a little bit of pressure on them. You’re putting an expectation. This is a real real-time meeting with this person. I’m going to sit there and monitor the inbox. The moment it comes in … What’s your e-mail address, by the way, so I can confirm it’s you?
Okay, great. The moment I see your e-mail address, I’m going to extend to you a 15% discount.
Don’t give them the discount hoping that that will get them over the fence. Get them to come over the fence first and then say you’re going to give them a discount. Do you see what I’m saying? Say the moment I see your order come through on my side, I’m going to run over to the sales manager’s desk. I’m going to watch the orders come through We get thousands of orders an hour, but I’m just going to put a filter. I’m going to ask my sales manager to put a filter on the inbox to catch your email, and the moment it does, I’m going to physically run up a packing slip. I’m going to print up a packing slip and run it to shipping and then I’m going to throw in an extra bottle for you. I’m going to throw in an extra gift for you in the same box so you don’t have to pay twice for shipping or whatever it is. Do you have kids? Kids love this. I’m going to give this to you as a free gift the moment I see …
Do you see where this is going? Follow-through. That’s sales. You can do that through social media. You’ve been doing that with a contract. You’ve been doing that in your retail store. If you’ve got a retail store, if you’ve got a fashion store, you talk to somebody as they’re browsing through your clothing. You talk to them. You say, “What’s your name? What are you looking for? This color looks great on you.” That’s at the point of purchase. That’s at the point of purchase, and you’re telling them, hey, this looks great, this is what you want. Yeah. I’m going to walk you over to the cash register.
There are so many kids outside the office today. Downstairs is a food court, so you’ll hear all the kids running and screaming.
You see what I’m saying? You walk someone from the shelf to the cash register and you make sure they pull out their credit card and you make sure they get checked out and you hand them the receipt. That’s a no-brainer in the retail world. You wouldn’t ever say, “Hey, if you like it, go ahead and check out and cash out. I’m sure someone is going to be there at the register to take your Amex or Visa or MasterCard.” If you’re a good salesperson, you’re going to walk them down the aisle.
Do it in Twitter, in Facebook, in Reddit, in the new Digg, in the new MySpace, in the new Kora or in the … Kora is new. In Path, in Instagram, whatever. Do it. As a bonus, I’m going to give you one thing. Go to the iTunes app store, download an app called NyamNyam. N-Y-A-M N-Y-A-M. If you make your headlines using NyamNyam, you’ll get about … My experience has been about 450%, 452-53% more click-throughs if I write my headlines using NyamNyam. That falls under the category of both marketing and advertising, but sales, you’ve got to follow through.
If you need help with your marketing, and if you want your marketing to produce sales, talk to us. We can help you.
We’re looking forward to helping you get a bunch of sales.