Have you have invested time and energy into social media, but still find that your lead generation results are less than stellar?
Whether you are marketing your latest blog post or building buzz around a new product, knowing how to improve your lead capture and conversion rate is a critical part of running a business in today’s online world.
Especially given the fact that social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. (source: HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing)
That’s a number hard to ignore.
If you want to boost your lead conversion rate through the power of social media, grab the six easy-to-implement tips below!
6 Ways to Convert Social Media Leads
1. Differentiate Your Personal Brand
Want to stand out in a sea of social media noise? Determine what differentiates your personal brand, sets it apart from the competition and makes it unique. Then clearly articulate each defining trait.
For example, you have a client intake form that digs deep into the needs, personality and communication style of your customers. Consumers eager to connect on a deeper level will resonate with your relationship vs. transactional-based thinking.
Use your social networks to express this fact by incorporating it into your conversations, posts and marketing materials. Culture and values should not be overlooked when considering what content to share on social media.
It is those traits specific to your culture that draws potential leads towards you as opposed to your competition.
2. Answer the “What’s In It For Me?” Question
Consumers are moving at lightening speed as they research, interact and make purchase decisions online.
In order to capture their attention, you need to answer the WIIFM question immediately.
Make sure your posts, tweets and daily interactions are straightforward with a clear call to action. Don’t leave a potential client guessing what you or your product is all about. The benefit should be spelled out and demonstrated in an easy to digest format.
3. Get Creative
Is your social media content limp, lifeless and devoid of any unique qualities that scream YOU?
Creativity can be one of the best selling points and when effectively used can contribute to increased leads and conversion. Why would this be?
People want to do business with people they know, like and trust. Creativity draws from your personality and those traits we discussed above. It defines you, sets you apart and allows people to connect with the juicy goodness that makes you undeniably you!
4. Respond In a Timely Manner
Want to lose a lead? Be slow to respond.
If someone has taken the time to reach out to you via social media, you need to take the time to respond in an appropriate time frame.
Put systems in place that allow you to easily respond and follow up after their initial contact. Systems create consistency and consistency builds trust and keeps you top-of-mind.
5. Educate your Prospects
Social media offers business owners and entrepreneurs the ability to keep their message alive.
It is is an excellent way to share your knowledge in an intriguing and conversational manner.
Is there a question that you find many of your customers asking over and over again? Turn it into a quick post, new blog article or short video tutorial.
6. Follow-Up
Did a potential client respond to a tweet with a question? Did you answer that question with a link to your website? Do not let that lead drop off your radar.
You never want to leave a potential client decision to chance. Encourage your lead to move forward with further details. Whether it’s a follow-up tweet, a phone call, email or face-to-face meeting, make sure you circle back around.
Follow-up is a customer service no-brainer, but an often missed opportunity when it comes to lead conversion.
Thanks , I’ve just been searching for info approximately this
topic for a while and yours is the best I have found out so far.
But, what in regards to the bottom line? Are you sure concerning the source?
I love what you say about letting your personality and creativity shine through when posting in social media, Rebekah! Personality is a defining feature of your personal brand and, to quote Dr. Seuss, no one is “youer than you” which means using YOU as your selling point can give you an extreme advantage over those who are too afraid to show their personality in their posts and on their website. I understand this fear, the desire to “be professional” and tone down your personality in order to “appeal to everyone”. But appealing to everyone is virtually the same as appealing to no one. You can’t possibly market to everyone and, even if you do, you can’t take on the whole world as your client, so you might as well stop trying to market to (and impress) everyone and just be yourself and attract the clients who resonate with you 🙂
Thank you Rebekah for the information you shared here i’m sure it will be very helpful for me and hopefully others , look forward to more of your blogs.
This point is someing that most don’t really consider. (2. Answer the “What’s In It For Me?” Question) It’s all about putting some thought into your content and shared infomation before shooting it off to your audience.
Great tips on how to generate leads through social media. Social Media has taken us by storm and we should take advantage of its presence to promote our business. Very helpful post.
Just found you and your very informative site! Glad to sign up for your email newsletters/posts so that I can continue to learn more from you to improve my food blog.
Ah Rebakah, you always have such a knack of putting things in proper perspective. Great useful tips for all of us online. I often times neglect to stop and think of the WIFM channels my clients/prospects are tuned into. Thanks for the reminder/nudge! Have a fabulous Thanksgiving my friend!
Rebekah,
I have been discovering 2 important/essential aspects of good marketing. One is answering that question that everyone has: What’s in it for me? And Second, to take the time and clearly educate people about how your product or service can, in fact, benefit them. Many people do not yet know that what you provide can help them. You may know it can but they may not think they need it. They may not understand what you do. You have to educate your potential customers. Blogging and social media shares are great ways to do that – with solid calls to action and sales funnels in place.
Warmly,
Dr. Erica
Well said and excellent tips Rebekah! Each of these tips are valuable but the one that I see overlooked time and again is #2. I have a lot of authors on my Twitter account and it always makes me sad to see one tweet after another that is nothing more than ‘buy my book’ or ‘download my free book.’ We need to be able to effectively and consistently answer the “why” question – why should readers buy your product (book) rather than any of the others out there?
This is a nice round up of how to go from talking to buying Rebekah.
Probably the most frequent second question clients will ask, after the “how do we get leads” type questions.
Definitely worthy of some social sharing love 🙂
Make it fun, memorable, different, creative. All the time. So they come back, know it is ROI of their time. Buyers, service users are busy busy people just like you and me. Great post.
Hi Rebekah
Great topic choice.
It is easy to get bogged down in doing the social media thing, but not really get any customers as a result.
i don’t really have focus myself at the moment, as I don’t yet have a product to convert with. But I can certainly see the potential in what you are saying.
We need to keep on the ball and use the leads that we generate.
have a great week
ashley
Hi Rebekah. Great tips! According to MarketingSherpa, 67% of B2B businesses use a lot of landing pages to bring leads into our nurturing campaigns from social media. How do you follow-up with your social media leads?
I think the key to making my social media lead to paying customers is to plan ahead. We’re a small boutique flowers shop I own with my business partner. With a perishable product, custom orders and regular day-to-day business plus a blog it can be very hard to keep up. We don’t have a large staff. so putting a system into place is key. I just made a draft of a plan for editorial calendars for our blog, Google+ and Pinterest. Putting this into place will be a great help I think. Thanks for this post.