A brand new study by Salesforce found that 70% of marketing executives are planning to increase their spend and efforts on Social Media. This is good news for the industry overall, but can look like bad news for you if you’re not prepared.
We’ll tell you what you can expect from this shift in the coming year and outline a few steps you should start taking ASAP so that you aren’t hurt by these changes.
Check out the graph below to see what’s in store for this year:
70% of Executives Will Spend More On Social Media (Source: Salesforce 2015)
Bottom line is: you can expect more competition on Facebook this year.
The results of this study indicate that an overwhelming majority of businesses plan to invest more time, money, & resources into reaching their audience on social media in 2015. So Facebook Marketing just got a bit more competitive, but we’ll get to that in a second…
As you can see, the top 3 areas for increased budgets are all related to social media.
- 70% of respondents are planning to spend more on social media advertising
- 70% are planning to spend more on social media marketing
- 67% are planning to spend more on social media engagement
But so what? That doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook itself is getting more competitive, right?
Well, let’s take a look at what specific social media marketing channels that business execs feel are the best places to spend their time…
Facebook Marketing Is The Most Popular Channel For Social Media Marketing In 2015 (Salesforce 2015)
You guessed it.
When we dig into the channels being expanded, we see that Facebook tops the list with 73% of execs seeing it as an effective channel to pursue. This is no doubt due to Facebook’s reputation as being the most popular social media platform on the planet.
As well as the positive results so many business owners get using Facebook Marketing. It’s not a secret: reaching your audience, grabbing fresh leads, and closing paying customers is done on Facebook Marketing.
The Implications
Alright so let’s get right to it. What does this mean for you?
This means an already crowded field is about to get a bit more crowded. Half of the questions we get from our readers and members on a daily basis boil down to one thing “Why can’t I reach my fans?”
You might say “I can just boost my posts!”, but that would not really solve it either, because guess what people will be doing as they increase their social media ad budget? They will be boosting posts of course! So even though there is supposed to be a tool in place to combat lack of reach, that tool is going to get even more crowded than it already is. Plus, boosting posts can get expensive if not done correctly.
Sorry to say, but it’s not going to get any easier as more companies move in aggressively on social media advertising. However, this is not just “Doom & Gloom”.
There is a serious opportunity for smart marketers to out maneuver new brands who don’t understand how to get real results from Facebook Marketing! Let’s look past this negative stuff and get to what you need to be doing…
The 7-Step Facebook Marketing Sales Funnel
The key to success this year for small online businesses success on social media is going to be getting your fans off of Facebook and into some other form of communication: email marketing, direct mailing list, setup a phone call, whatever!
I’ve been saying this for years, and it’s never been more true. Facebook Fans are pretty worthless. You must get your audience off of Facebook, build an email list, and communicate with your people outside of Facebook itself.
Here at Get 10,000 Fans, we are constantly perfectly what we call “The 7-Step Fan Page Sales Funnel”. We’ll cover the basics of it in this post, but check out the link at the end of the post to download your copy of “The Fan Page Sales Funnel” infographic, and start copying my exact process for turning Facebook Fans into paying customers.
How Facebook Fans Become Valuable
The bottom line is: the only way you are going to guarantee your consistently reaching your audience and have any prayer at turning them into something more is to get them onto some kind of mailing list, outside of Facebook.
In short, before we get too far into 2015 you need to get your audiences to opt in to your e-mail list.
The short version to do this is to create an opt-in page (aka “Squeeze Page”, or “Landing Page”) through my favorite tool, LeadPages. Offer a nice piece of content or done for you resource and send your fans to that opt-in page to get your fans onto your email list.
Then use email marketing to grow a relationship with your “list”, inform them about your product offerings, and give them opportunities to purchase from you.
There are two big benefits here, firstly, you get their e-mails and don’t have to rely on Facebook to let you access your fans.Effective email marketing is one heck of a lot more reliable than hoping your Facebook Fans see a status update in their News Feed, that’s for sure.
Secondly, if you give them great content on the very first e-mail related interaction you have, it sets you up to have them continue to open your e-mails. It’s on you at that point to make sure what you are sending is worth opening.
Big Picture: Facebook Marketing in 2015
- In 2015 70% of marketing executives will increase their activity on Facebook
- This means competition on Facebook will be increasing dramatically
- To beat this, you need to focus on directing your fans toward your email list, and out of the crowded Facebook environment
- Once users are in your lists, use basic email marketing to convert them into customers and life-long fans
What’s Next?
I told you there would be a cool free download. Here it is!
Click the link below to see the exact, 7-step process we are using every single day to convert Facebook Fans into email subscribers, subscribers into paying customers, and customers into repeat customers.
Download my 7-Step Fan Page Sales Funnel Infographic here.
If you’d like to learn more about this big study released by Salesforce, you can also read the full study here.
And finally, if you like the 7-Step Fan Page Sales Funnel Infographic, we have a more in depth version of what we do and how we do it that we sell as a report for $10. Great report, and will help you stay ahead of the wave. If you’re interested, click the link below…
Get The Fan Page Funnel Report For $10.00.
Thanks for reading! Get ahead of the game, stay ahead of the competition.
What do you think? Any questions? Where are you with turning your Facebook Fans into something more valuable?
