Many businesses focus on building strong online communities but turning those networks into actual conversions for your business can be challenging. Nurturing digital relationships is important because with the right efforts, you can use them as a marketing funnel into offline sales. For example, the book “The Seventh Sense” by Joshua Cooper Ramo offers an in-depth look at how interconnectedness directly influences the business landscape in today’s corporate world. As an expert in connected networks, Ramo explains how all industries and business markets are now connected through technology and online platforms. This article will highlight the three ways you can take advantage of those online platforms to help positively affect your business:
Work on Relationship-Building with Consumers
Crafting a strong online presence through social media channels is important but finding ways to make those personal connections with your client base is what’s going to set you apart from the rest. Your customers want to feel valued and want solutions to their problems or answers to their questions instantaneously. Most of the time customers just want to feel heard, and social media is typically where they turn to do so, so use it to your advantage. To accomplish this, engage with your customers through posts on Facebook, tweets on Twitter or reviews on Yelp. In addition, adding features like 24/7 live chat to your website will make your customers feel valued. This type of support for your customers outside of business hours creates loyalty and brand recognition as a business that cares.
Create Social Media Campaigns
Not only do you want people to engage with your online content, but you want to turn those followers into actual consumers, or conversion sales. Social media platforms offer you the option to run marketing campaigns to generate new leads, increase traffic to your website, promote a specific product or service and more. For example, Facebook ads are a great way for businesses to turn online followers into offline conversions. With campaign objectives like “send people to a destination on or off Facebook,” you’re able to choose a campaign that gets people to navigate to a page or place on or off of Facebook. This means you can target your Facebook following and run a promotional add to increase traffic to your website or perhaps boost the number of app downloads for your business. Additionally, platforms like Facebook and Instagram give you the ability to create exclusive promotional ads for each platform. You can track conversions by using special promo codes or limited time offer deals.
Offer Personalized Messaging
As stated before, customers like feeling valued and appreciated by businesses. Another way that’s sure to create conversions is to utilize personalization across all platforms. This means when responding to a customer question via Twitter, for example, you should always use the customer’s name in your response. This creates a foundation of trust and understanding with your followers. Another way you can utilize personalization is to run drip marketing campaigns via email and text messages. These campaigns allow you to send personalized automated messages to both sales leads and current clients, which can be either promotional or informational. Customers are usually more receptive to text message drip marketing since it’s convenient and doesn’t have the traditional cold-calling feel.
Online platforms can be the key to your business’ success when utilized properly. These three tips will help you stay connected with your customer base and turn those connections into sales and long-term clients.
