Most people don’t realize that there are a lot of ways to use Facebook for selling beyond just posting on their business page or running straightforward ads. For smart, creative marketers, Facebook is a powerhouse of opportunities just waiting to be leveraged. However, to fully benefit from these opportunities, you need to think outside of the box and use Facebook in ways that few marketers are.
In this article, we’ll talk about six creative ways to use Facebook to increase sales. Combined with a strong paid search campaign, these strategies can completely change how you use Facebook for selling and marketing.
#1: Sell Products Directly with Shopify
Did you know you can sell directly by importing your products into Facebook? If you don’t already have a Shopify store, you might consider signing up for one, as it offers seamless integration with Facebook. With a few clicks of a button, you can have your entire store up for sale on Facebook.
This isn’t simply a new storefront for facilitating online sales. Your followers not only have a way to buy from you, but will quite literally become part of your marketing team through comments, likes, and shares.
To appreciate the direct sales aspect, let’s delve into the relationship Shopify has with Facebook. Shopify powers over 300,000 businesses. Through this collaboration, you can add products to your online store and make changes in real time. If you’re already accustomed to using Facebook, the Shopify adaptation to Facebook will be even easier. There won’t be much of a learning curve when it comes to marketing campaigns, analytics, and even understanding your target audience.
This is the most direct, obvious place to start monetizing your Facebook presence.
#2: Use Facebook to Capture Visitors, Then Remarket to Them
Facebook can be used as a first touch attribution tool, where you capture interest and then use other methods like remarketing or email marketing to complete the sale.
People may not be interested in clicking through to your site if they feel you are trying to sell them something. However, if you send them to a funny video or a great article, they may be happy to click through. Once they land on your site, at a minimum, you can capture their cookie to remarket to them for as long as 90 days, trying to engage them as customers over time, now that they are more familiar with your brand.
Image Courtesy of Collective.com.au
By using this “Top of the Funnel” strategy, you gain many opportunities to market to every single person who has even a slight interest in your product or service. Think about it. If you simply show them an ad for your product, and they’re not interested at that time, they won’t click through, and the advertising opportunity ends there. If you use a soft sales approach, and instead give them an easy way to click through to your site, you can now market to them through remarketing.
You can build a campaign that slowly increases the intensity of the sale, starting with generating interest, later giving them an offer, then giving them a blowout sale that they can’t refuse. You’ve then turned a visitor who was simply having fun into a potential customer.
#3: Combine Facebook & Email Marketing
In the same way that you use Facebook + Remarketing, you can use Facebook + Email Marketing. Offer something of value (using a Facebook lead generation ad) that provides motivation for them to sign up to your email list. Whether it’s a free trial, a free product, or a free app, the goal is to capture their email address.
Once they’re on your list and have a positive impression of your brand, you can send them newsletters and promotions over time. When they become a subscriber, you’ve effectively raised the probability of a sale.
MORE: Get 10X More Out of Email Marketing with PPC (and Vice Versa)
#4: Employ Scrolling Images
Everyone loves a slide show, right? OK well, maybe it depends what you’re showing. Scrolling ads can show multiple ads on the same screen, presenting multiple products and keeping your visitor curious. It can also brilliantly highlight options for the same product, like different colors for a particular piece of jewelry.
You could go old-school and build your own gif, but Facebook offers a more sophisticated solution known as the “Carousel Format” ad, which allows you to “show 3-5 images and/or videos, headlines and links or calls to action in a single ad unit.”
Get detailed specs on this and other Facebook ad types here.
#5: Use Short (15-20 Second) Video Ads
Earlier this year, Facebook updated its algorithm to favor videos. Do you regularly create infographics for your site? Custom images? Find an animator who can create a video out of those animations, and upload them to Facebook. Then amplify those videos using Facebook Ads to increase their reach.
Once again, make sure you send those visitors to a landing page on your site so you can capture their email address or cookie. Many companies don’t have the resources or bandwidth to create videos; if you figure out an inexpensive, streamlined way to create videos to be promoted on Facebook, you will gain a competitive edge over competitors.
Remember, shorter videos get more views
#6: Go live on Facebook
Another video option is Facebook Live Videos, their version of Periscope. It’s among the simplest tools for recording and sharing video as it’s being recorded. A notification of your live feed will go out to your followers when your recording begins, so it can be liked and shared while you’re broadcasting.
When the recording is finished, it then becomes a Facebook post as a recorded video which includes the header “Recorded Live.” If you have a YouTube channel, you now have an opportunity to cross-promote by uploading the newly created video.
Econsultancy recently shared 10 pioneering examples of brands using Facebook Live video. For example, Chevrolet used it to live-stream the announcement of their new electric car: “Product launches are a great use case for livestreaming, where super fans can get the scoop before anyone else.”
Image courtesy of Business Insider
Considering their huge market share and growing variety of business-tailored tools, Facebook is a serious contender in terms of driving sales through social media. Dive in, and watch your brand flourish!
About the author
Jonathon Ohayon is the Chief Operating Officer of Brilliance.com and has been managing companies and motivating people since the 6th grade. As a proven business leader and gemologist, he is uniquely skilled in navigating the ever changing e-commerce landscape. When he is not answering emails into the wee hours of the night, he can be found spending time with his wife and three children.
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