Recent statistics show that Facebook™ still dominates the social media marketing world. However, looking closely at some of the findings, we realise a significant issue:
- 93% of businesses use Facebook™ for marketing, but
- only 49% of business owners consider that their Facebook™ campaigns are effective.
Why is there such a discrepancy between these two numbers? The answer is that, in most cases, the ways businesses build and maintain their sales funnels on social media are ineffective.
“Help, My Facebook™ Sales Funnel is Leaking!”
As funny as it sounds, this is what many marketers and business owners would exclaim if they realised why their social media marketing is not yielding the expected results. A sales funnel has a very delicate construction, one that needs constant tweaks and fixes. It is not something you can create and then forget about for a couple of months or longer.
And even if you are careful, you may not be looking at the true problem areas or applying adequate fixes. This is why we’ve decided to offer you clear, actionable advice to help you fix your failing Facebook™ sales funnel.
- Is your Audience too Wide or too Narrow?
One of the problems that affect the overall ROI of a Facebook™ sales funnel is the defined audience you target with your ads and your other social marketing strategies. There are two opposing issues which may affect this:
- Your audience selection is too wide
- Your audience selection is too restricted
In the first case, you will spend a lot of money at the top of the funnel and only get a small number of sales at its bottom. In the second case, you are leaving out lots of potential customers, because your selection criteria are too specific.
With A/B testing, website custom audiences and lookalike audiences, you will be able to define an adequate Facebook™ audience for your sales funnel.
- Is your Sales Funnel too Short or too Long?
Not all sales funnels are equal. For instance, a Facebook™ sales funnel for personal care or clothes and shoes is much shorter than one for life insurances and other financial products and services. The more expensive and complex the product, the longer it takes people to become familiarised with the company and its products and to develop trust.
This is why it is important to adapt your sales funnel to your product and to your audience’s expectations. If you take too long to get to the point when you make a sales offer, your audience will lose interest. If you hurry them along the funnel, they will get suspicious.
The key here is to understand your customers’ behaviour and buying cycles–this can be done by creating and updating a customer buyer persona.
- Where is your Sales Funnel Leaking?
Where exactly do prospects lose their interest? Is it when you make the transition from lead to qualified lead? Or when you make the sales proposition? This is where constant analysis of the raw analytical data is crucial.
You have to look at the numbers at each point in the Facebook™ sales funnel:
- Page likes
- Click-through rates
- Opt-in rates
- Sales
When you compare historical data over a period of a few weeks, you will not fail to notice where the gap occurs, where the prospects fall through your sales funnel. Once you’ve found the issue, you can analyse exactly what is going wrong there and fix it (once again, A/B testing is your best friend).
- Do you use an Adequate Bidding Strategy?
Some Facebook™ sales funnels fail not because their strategies in themselves are inadequate, but because the marketers have chosen the wrong bidding strategies–ones that are more expensive than they should be.
This happens because it is not easy to fine tune a manual bidding strategy and the marketer allows Facebook™ to set the Delivery Strategy as Automatic. This is like handing your card and car keys to a friend without specifying how long they can use the car or for how many miles.
- Do you Value the List or the Relationship?
Yes, the list of subscribers and of Facebook™ fans matters, but the way you maintain your relationship with them matters more. A sales funnel can thrive only in an environment of trust, of brand awareness and of continuous dialogue with your audience.
So, keep one eye on the numbers, and the other on what is going on with your online reputation and on your Facebook™ and other social media accounts. This is the only way in which you can make a promise the prospects can trust: by acting on that promise before you ask for their money.