Believe it or not, there are many businesses out there that do not have a Facebook business page, or they do have a business page started, but it has little or no fans. I am frequently asked about different ways to grow online communities without spending a huge advertising budget. One tool to grow your online community that you have readily available, but is commonly forgotten, is your email list.
If you have been growing your email list for a while, and if it is up-to-date and relevant, you can grow Facebook fans with email marketing. Here is how I do it!
Leverage Your Email List to Promote a Contest/Giveaway
First things first, if you haven’t used your Facebook business page in awhile, you will want to start to develop and post content on a consistent basis by developing a content marketing plan. This is important because people do not want to become a fan of pages that have outdated or irrelevant news.
Make sure that all of your business information is up to date including phone numbers, address and company description. Also make sure that your Facebook business page looks aesthetically appealing, uses your current logos and fresh images. All of these things will benefit your fan conversion when you start to drive new faces to your fan page.
Next, develop an offer. Not just any offer, but something that is appealing to your potential client and something that would really motivate them to like your page and sign up for a giveaway (which requires giving you their personal information). Here are a few ideas:
Good Offers
- Internet Provider: Free High-Speed Internet
- Low cost to provider
- This allows the potential customer to experience your service “upgraded” – why would they ever want to go back to slow internet?
- Vision Care: Free Sunglasses
- Low cost to provider
- This not only lets your prospect experience your product, but gets them into your store/office.
- HVAC, Heating & Air: Free Nest Thermostat
- Fairly low cost
- Allows for service technicians to install in customer home. This experience will be remembered by the prospective customer and is something they will use daily. Product has the potential to leave a great impression.
- City Community: Free Broncos Ticket
- Fairly low cost
- Appealing to your prospective Facebook fans, because they are Broncos tickets and we are IN Bronco Country! Okay, besides that, it is fun and will appeal to almost everyone. This is an experience that your prospect is sure to remember, and winners usually share through word of mouth the experience they had, and how it came about.
Now the fun part, setting up your contest. You have a few options here. I personally am partial to using Offerpop or Woobox. These are great tools and offer a variety of different contest types with different objectives. You want to keep in mind that the more “work” your ask your audience to do (when it comes to signing up, submitting a photo, etc.) the less likely they are to sign up. I’d recommend starting out with a simple Sweepstakes promotion.
Once you have your contest set up and plugged into your Facebook page, you want to promote it via email. In your email, let your audience know that you appreciate them and that this contest is to thank them for being engaged in your business. While Facebook no longer allows for fan-gating, you can still direct or suggest to your audience that they become a fan first, here is how: “Become a fan of Vision Care Specialists for a chance to win a free pair of sunglasses.” Make sure to set this up as a drip campaign for the people that don’t open your email on the first send.
A couple things to keep in mind for a successful campaign. Make sure your offer is in line with your email audience (this is who you are targeting). Your email list will be made up of current and prospective customers. Moving current customers over to your Facebook business page is just as valuable as moving the prospective customers over that have expressed an interest in your product or service. Set a goal for target fans based on a percentage of your email list size. The larger your list, the more fan conversions that are likely. A smaller list of 1,000 or so may only result in 50-100 new fans.
Next, sit back, relax and watch the fans roll in!
How to Use this Information
Remember when developing your social media marketing strategy, to keep up on new marketing trends, developments and launches within the field. Knowing what to plan and prepare for will greatly help you stay ahead of the curve in social media. At Webolutions, we take this into consideration with every client and develop a unique social media marketing advertising strategy that is custom tailored to each client’s needs.To learn more about social marketing and how it can work with your internal marketing plan, call Webolutions at 303-300-2640.
