engagement

Personalize your Marketing efforts

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Everyone (well, most people) wants to be noticed, loved, accepted and validated. It’s human nature.  So many marketing efforts forget this very important fact when they are building out their strategies and campaigns.

Put YOURSELF into your CUSTOMERS and PROSPECTS shoes.  It’s the Golden Rule – do unto others.  When clients ask me if something they’ve done is good, or if it will work, I ask them what they would do if they were one of their customers and THEY got that email, saw that billboard, saw that ad?  When they tell me their response – I say “exactly” – good or bad.

So, what are top brands doing to increase engagement and conversion?  They are getting deeply personal.

  • Know your data, your audience, and their actions. You don’t need a multi-billion dollar budget to do this – you just need a system.  It’s important that you are looking at your email open rates, your Google analytics, and your social engagement on a consistent regular basis.  Know what’s working and what isn’t.  More importantly, you want to SEGMENT out your DATA.  Find the highly engaged followers or readers and give them more, more, more of what they are looking for.  Next, you want to do a deep dive on who those high engagers who convert to clients are – what is their demographic?  If you find commonalities, you are building your TCP – your target client profile.
  • Personalize your delivery. From simply adding a first name or company name within an email marketing campaign to redirecting email and social media campaigns based on behaviors and actions taken, to highly personalized website experiences based on previous actions or their demographical makeup.  Artificial intelligence will play a big part in all of this over the next 5 years – in fact, big brands are already using it.
  • Be real. Once again I’m preaching authenticity.  Your customers want to know that you “get them” – the only way to do that is to be on their level and connect with them.  You won’t appeal to everyone but you will appeal to those who love love love you – and don’t you want them as clients versus the ones that could give a rat’s ass about you?  Enough said on that subject 🙂

In the end, you have to connect with your clients and prospects on a deeply emotional level.  Heart and soul, transparency, storytelling, BFF personal kind of level. When you do – the magic happens.  Try to constantly be pitching and making assumptions – rarely works.

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You’ve started your Facebook group – Now what?

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You’ve set up your Facebook Business Page, and you are ready to create your Facebook Group – but: What should I call it? How do you get members? What do you post about? Should the group be public, closed, or secret? How do you prevent trolls? Should I set rules or questions to join the group? All great questions, and things you need to consider before you get your Group off the ground.

Before you launch your Facebook Group – you should determine what the primary goal of your group is. Yes, the ultimate goal is to increase sales for your business, but people won’t join your group if they think it’s just a continuous sales pitch. Many businesses create Facebook Groups as a place to share some free advice and tips and tricks. It’s a place where you can be seen as an expert so that eventually the group becomes a feeder for your sales pipeline. SO, choose a name that conveys what your group is about. No one will join a group that is the name of your business. Name it something that relates to the topic or theme of what you want your group to be. You can incorporate the company name if it makes sense, but it doesn’t have to be included. Once you determine what you want the look and feel to be, pick a cover photo, create your description, etc.[/cs_text][cs_text]You also want to determine if your group will be public and anyone can join, they need to request to join, or it’s by invite only. Public groups are great for certain things, but if you only want your ideal clients or target audience in the group – I’d suggest a private group where you must manually accept requestors. There are a few instances where secret groups make sense – but those are usually part of a paid membership offering.

Many private Facebook Groups require members to answer a few questions before they can join. This is a great way to learn more about your members. Some sample questions may be: How did you hear about this Group? Have you viewed our free training or downloaded our Free XXX workbook? This helps you weed our spammers or trolls as well. They typically won’t take the time to fill out questions. BUT it allows you to get some insight into how much your audience knows about you, if they’ve viewed any of your lead magnets (free downloads or trainings) or any other info you want to gather.
[/cs_text][cs_text]It’s important to set the stage from the launch on the Group expectations. Create a pinned post at the top of the page so that the first thing new members see are the rules and expectations of the group. A few good housekeeping rules to post are 1. Keep things courteous – be respectful to others in the group. 2. No spam or plugging your business. (You will get trolls who try to join every group and post about what they are selling.) 3. This is your group too, please engage, ask questions, etc. 4. Give value – post things relevant to the group and its members. 5. Be open and share your own personal experiences, struggles, suggestions, etc. If you come across a troll or all around rude person, it’s ok to delete them.

Gaining a following in your Group can take time. Don’t get discouraged and give up. It’s important to get the word out about your group. Some easy ways are inviting people you are already connected to who might find interest it in. You can also send out an email to your list of contacts to see if they have any interest in joining. Why not add a link in your email signature or on your website as well? If people don’t know about your group – they can’t join!

Lastly, and probably most importantly, is posting engaging content. Get the engagement started with some posts of your own related to the Group topic. Don’t post salesy stuff about your own business. Share some of your own wins or loses, ask questions around areas that you may have personally struggled with. Share some 3rd party articles you found interesting or infographics. Once you get the ball rolling, others should follow.

As your group grows you may want to enlist others that you know to help moderate the page by making them an admin. It’s important that someone is always watching the group, letting in the right people, and encouraging participation.

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Should you start a Facebook Group?

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If you are on Facebook, the odds are that you are probably part of a Facebook Group. Facebook isn’t just about connecting with friends and family anymore (or people you went to high school with and haven’t seen in 20 years, lol), it’s a way to stay more connected with everything that matters in your life. Facebook Group and Facebook Pages make it possible to follow businesses you like, public figures and even common interests and hobbies. So why should you have a Facebook Group if you already have a Facebook Page for your business and a personal page – well, simply because it gives you more ways to interact.

Before you start a Facebook Group, it’s important to know the difference between a Group and a Page. Similar to a personal profile, a Facebook Page enables you to create a profile for your business. BUT, pages are visible to everyone on Facebook. Everyone on Facebook can connect to a Page by Liking it and new posts will show up in the News Feed. Facebook Groups on the other hand are a place for people to come together around a common cause, issue, activity, or interest. They allow the members to discuss issues, post photos or video, and share relevant content. You can also choose the privacy of the group: public (anyone can join), closed (requires admin approval to enter), and secret (can join by invitation only). Like Pages, new posts in the group will show up in the News Feed of it’s members.

So, the real question is, if I already have a Facebook Page, why do I need a Facebook Group? With all the changes to the Facebook algorithms, to really make a Page work, you need high engagement from your followers, so your posts keep showing in their New Feed. It sounds simple, but it’s tricky, so most businesses are forced to run paid ads that target their ideal client audience. Also, most consumers look at a Business Page on Facebook as an advertisement for the company – they are only seeing information that the company wants them to see. More and more companies are turning to Facebook Groups instead of abandoning Facebook as a whole.

Using Groups, you can create a community that isn’t based solely around your business, but a topic within your business that others will also find interesting. Say you own your own car repair business, but you love working on Corvette’s from the 1990’s – so you create a Facebook Group for 1990’s Corvette owners. With over a billion users already using Groups – it’s a win-win to keep potential clients engaged with you.

Here’s the top 5 reasons why your business needs a Facebook Group:

  1. You can engage with your followers. This is where you will get all the likes and comments vs your Facebook Page. If you are asking questions, providing good content, and encouraging others to contribute – this is where the magic will happen.
  2. You can teach and build trust. This is your group and you are the leader. After all, you started the group because you know about the topic and can explain, motivate, inspire, and teach the content that you love. This is where you can be seen as an expert and influence people’s lives. You aren’t pushing your business but are sharing your knowledge and encouraging people to share their questions, problems, and successes.
  3. Stay top of mind. With a Facebook Profile or Page, there is no guarantee that your content will be seen unless people go directly to your Profile or Page. With a group, anything that is posted in the group will 100% be seen in the members News Feed. So, the more you post, the more you are seen by potential clients.
  4. Get feedback. Within your group, you can create polls, ask for feedback, and determine what type of content is more relevant to your members and ideal clients. Your group can be a testing ground – if you get positive feedback – move forward. If you missed the mark, then you know you need to move on to the next idea.
  5. Announce special offers. If you’ve tried to announce a special offer on your Business Page, you’ve probably been met with very little engagement. Unless you put some advertising dollars behind it, the odds are most of your followers aren’t even seeing it. BUT when you post in your Group – 100% of your members will see your offer.

Building an online community is an important step for any growing business. It can help you get in touch with your key demographic, gather insights, promote your business, increase consumer loyalty and more. If you want to start building a community, look no further than the world’s most popular social network: Facebook. If you want to start your own Facebook Group from your Business Page: CLICK HERE.

Want to check our Red Barn\’s Facebook Group – Entrepreneur Masters? Click Here to Join!

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Is Blogging Dead?

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Um…NO! I’ve gotten a bunch of push back lately from people who are telling me that the days of weekly, daily, or monthly blog posts are over.

Why the questioning? Big reduction in comments on website blogs and the fact that we are inundated with content 24/7 and people just aren’t taking the time to read everything. All true.

So why continue writing weekly blog posts?

Blogs are still very important and people ARE still reading and commenting, but they are doing so via social media and email. Followers may NOT read every blog, but they are reading blogs that are relevant to them at that point in time. Blogs also help SEO on your website – in a huge way.

Here’s the process that I follow:

  • We create an editorial calendar for the year outlining what we are going to talk about based on our marketing/sales/business growth strategies
  • We create content in the form of blogs, whitepapers, articles and emails.
  • We share our blogs via our social channels, site in articles and white papers, and sometimes we share via email.
  • People tend to comment on social channels – especially LinkedIn and Twitter.
  • If we get high engagement – we may consider boosting posts to get further reach and engagement.
  • We watch the analytics to see what’s hot – and consider writing more content or expanding on those topics.

Frequency – why weekly? Because people ARE inundated with tons of content daily and if you miss them one week, you can catch them the next. If you are only pushing out new content every couple of months and you miss them – well, do the math.

Keep writing, keep posting! Trust us, blogs are alive and doing just fine if they are well written and relevant to your audience.

Do you write a blog now? Share it with us – we always love reading great stuff!

Happy writing

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