Making Money Marketing

Yesterday I examined one technique to boost your fan conversion when investing in Facebook advertising to acquire new Facebook fans. In addition to getting a lot of great feedback, I also heard from users who were critical of the technique. I’ll break down the rationale behind paying for fans momentarily. However a more important issue has emerged through the emails I’ve received over the past few days: people want instant results. There are a number of mistakes that beginning Facebook marketers make and based on the emails I’ve received, many of those mistakes are being made by our readers. You too may be making this critical mistake.

Why Buy Facebook Advertising To Acquire Fans?

Prior to explaining the early mistakes that many Facebook marketers make, let me first address why you would use Facebook advertising to acquire Facebook fans. As one commenter put it yesterday, “I question the idea of paying for Facebook ppc ads to get people to like your page. You’re paying Facebook to keep the traffic within Facebook. Seems like a great way to make money – for Facebook.” There is no doubt that this marketing model is a great way for Facebook to generate revenue, however the real reason you would buy Facebook advertising to gain fans is because you’ve exhausted your initial marketing channels.

Your company should have a blog which is being used to gain Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and email newsletter subscribers. However this marketing channel can only go so far. You may be the best writer in the world but it doesn’t single-handedly guarantee that you’ll be able to grow your audience as quick as you’d like. That’s when you begin using alternative marketing strategies. One of those strategies is promoting your Facebook Page. Why? Next to email, which is the best channel for reengaging your audience, Facebook is an extremely effective channel for reengagement. As I’ve previously emphasized, I’m not advocating killing other marketing channels in favor of Facebook marketing. Instead, Facebook is an excellent addition to your current marketing strategy.

Now that you’ve determine that you want to expand your marketing, and you have a budget to spend, why not spend that money on acquiring fans within your target audience?

The Single Most Critical Beginner’s Mistake

If you happen to have a budget to spend on Facebook advertising and you are interested in expanding your audience because your initial marketing channels have been maximized, that’s when you should start reading some of the guides we’ve created here. However if you are looking for that “silver bullet”, you are probably going to be disappointed. That’s because expanding your audience requires a lot of hard work. Setting aggressive yet reasonable expectations is critical. So how do you know if your expectations are unreasonable? I’ll provide you with a quick case study.

500,000 Fans In 12 Months

Yesterday, one of our readers reached out to me to ask for advice on their Facebook marketing strategy. After seeing the success of Paulo Coelho, who now has over 2.2 million fans, this individual, who was about to be a first-time published author, wanted to have 500,000 fans at a minimum in 12 months. It was nothing short of an audacious goal. To put things in perspective, Coelho’s book The Alchemist has become the best selling book in history. I should add that this book followed two other books that he wrote which were essentially complete failures. He also spent years perfecting the art of writing before penning the wildly successful The Alchemist.

Given how successful Coelho has been, and given that he has 2.2 million fans, what do you think a reasonable target for a first-time author is? I would suggest that 500,000 is too many. In fact, imagine if the first book that this author publishes turns out to be terrible. He’ll now have exposed his first-time work to a large audience who will be reserved about purchasing any of his work in the future.

Building A Legitimately Large Audience

The only way to build a large and legitimate audience is to develop ideas that spread organically. As you’ve perfected the art of developing powerful and compelling ideas, you expand your audience potential. At that point Facebook can be used as a tool to reach a larger portion of your total audience potential in a quick period of time. So don’t make this mistake: do not overestimate your total audience potential. If you have a flower shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, your maximum audience potential is the total number of people in Charlotte who purchase flowers. Even once you’ve determined your audience potential, take the time to perfect your message.

The fact is that your message can single-handedly provide more marketing power and develop a greater audience potential than any other marketing activity you perform. In the mean-time, invest heavily in developing your core audience. The harder you work at it, the more likely you will be able to develop a message which resonates with the masses. At that point, it’s time to build a legitimately large audience. I honestly believe that everybody reading this has the ability to build a legitimately large audience with the tools that are at their disposal, however I’m not a believer in silver bullets that will get you there.

If you’re willing to work hard, we’ll continue to provide you with strategies that will help maximize the impact of your Facebook marketing efforts.

You may think that email, Twitter and Facebook are all slight variations on the same tune, but the ExactTarget Research Series, Subscribers, Fans and Followers has shown that each venue has its own X-Factor which makes it special. The trick, which is summarized in their newly published final report, is figuring out how to make them all work as a team.

The study begins by breaking down the numbers and there was a surprise here. 93% of online consumers say they receive at least one permission-based email a day. These are the subscribers. 38% said they are a Facebook fan of at least one brand. These are the fans. The surprise is in the followers, those U.S. online consumers who say they follow at least one brand on Twitter. That number is 5%. That’s it.

I probably spend more time on Twitter than the average person, so my idea of the usage is likely skewed by that, but I would have guessed the number at 10-15%. The upside is that of that 5%, 37% said that following a brand it made it more likely that they would purchase something from them. 27% of subscribers agreed as did 17% of the Facebook fans.

I’m not great with math, but I’m pretty sure that means that a larger number of people are getting emails and are getting influenced by them as compared to Facebook and Twitter. But all three venues have their success rate, which is why it’s so important to make them work together.

Many of the people surveyed said they were confused by where to look for information because the branding across the venues wasn’t consistent. For example, if I want a company’s monthly coupon offer, will I get it if I sign up for the email, or only if I become a fan on Facebook? Consumers didn’t like being told they had to subscribe to any one particular method in order to receive information.

Ideally, you want consumers to follow all three channels. To do this, you must cross-promote one channel with another. Announce Facebook winners in the email newsletter, Tweet about content that’s exclusive to Facebook, create a special email newsletter for Twitter followers. All of that takes time and that’s money – two items most businesses don’t have in abundance. That means you have to pick your battles. Try mixing and matching and monitor the results. If a campaign isn’t getting results, try something else. Social media is so new, there isn’t a proven pattern for success.

There are a few tips you should keep in mind and these come right from the consumers you’re trying to reach.

• Make it worth their time.

• Show gratitude for their business.

• Deliver quality products.

• Honor their individual preferences.

• Provide excellent customer service.

• Be honest.

I’ll bet you already knew those things, but are those points coming across in your email, Twitter and Facebook campaigns? That’s what is important.

You’ll find a lot more detail in the ExactTarget Subscribers, Fans and Followers report. If you haven’t downloaded this six part series, do it. It’s free and there’s a wealth of information in each report. As a bonus, the reports are light on text and big on graphics, perfect for those of you who want to be informed but don’t have the time to plow through a twenty page report.

Finally, let me leave you with this thought. If your audience is on the go, they may prefer Twitter over email so that’s where you should be concentrating your efforts. More of a social audience? Hook them in with fun games and community events on Facebook. The point is, the only statistics that really matter, are yours after you run a social media marketing campaign.

Do you have any ideas for making you email, Twitter and Facebook accounts work together?  We’d like to hear about it.

Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

eric seiger

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