How to move your social traffic into a sales funnel

Social media is the ultimate place for all marketing efforts. From retargeting to new audience, social media has it all and if brands or companies play their cards right, then social media could be their number one conversion tool. However, organic social media traffic is usually a weak crowd puller. Why? Because the majority of leads acquired are in fact dead leads. There is a very small percentage of users that come through these channels and effectively convert. But in order to succeed, it is important to know how to convert that small percentage after all. You can convert most of social traffic into leads that convert by simply incorporating a sales process in the equation. The very sales strategy can also pick up the cold leads and address them in a manner to win their trust, thus converting them gradually.

How can you optimise your leads using a sales funnel?

1. Analyse first: In order to get a better understanding of the current social media strategy and its individual performance, analysis is the key. By understanding your current performance you can devise a strategy that allows you to target on improving the existing one. This will also help understand which channels are getting you the highest conversions, thus allowing you to focus on them fully. The analysis of such reports is usually conclusive and effective in understanding where the higher traffic is coming from and where the higher conversion is coming from. This helps you realise that high traffic does not necessarily mean higher conversion and sometimes the lowest traffic might fetch you a better conversion.

2. Shorten the time to taken to enter the funnel: Many companies and brands lead users back to a registration page which is detailed and time consuming. While it is understood that you would like to capture as much data as possible, people tend to bounce off when there is a need to enter so much information. Instead social icons to register are an excellent way of keeping the user stay on the page and complete registration easily. Remember to include the preference based on the most traffic generating social channel. While all this is great, it is important to not provide too many options. Many options result in high bounce rates too.

3. Drive targeted traffic: On social media it is easy to get carried away. However, it is important to analyse your audience and approach this audience in a specific manner. This procedure is sure to help drive more relevant traffic than usual. When campaigns run for all audience the chances of the campaign picking a very irrelevant crowd is especially true with social media channels like Facebook. This is the reason why perfect targeting is essential.

4. Listen more: Interact with people on social media, religiously. Follow tags, mentions, hashtags and so on to identify those customers who might be sharing your content. By creating a more casual appearance on social media, the audience is more likely to receive your product better. By listening and interacting with users who are not necessarily interacting on your business page, you tend to create a more approachable look thus allowing users to be more interested in your products.

5. Retarget: By tracking the visitors from social media ads to your website, you can then begin retargeting them with more relevant ads. Research shows that retarget ads perform way better than social media ads in general. Moreover, by retargeting people who have already entered your sales funnel, you are ensuring the conversion of quality leads in the first place.

6. Thank you pages with share buttons: When you have a successful conversion the number one way to increase your conversion further is by creating a share option on the thank you page. Many brands have begun doing this to encourage successful sign ups to share this with their most relevant circle. This is indeed a very smart idea, because the chances of your customers network being relevant to you is quite high. Most brands either create a share to social media option, while others include a share via email, whatsapp or message option thus making it more personal instead of public.

7. Find your best channel: Many brands approach social media without direction. There are some channels that work best for some brands. Instead of identifying that and utilising it to the fullest, many brands tend to go on all channels and invest a lot of time and effort in pushing content on all. Smarter brands identify their best channels early on and simply begin optimising these channels without much thought for the others. It is important to identify where your apt audience lies. For some this might be on Facebook, while for the others it could be Instagram and yet for some other brands their target audience might be on Twitter or Linkedin. It is important to tweak your strategy to reach out to your audience at the correct places.

It is important to remember that social media only brings the traffic. A inside sales is what converts these leads. Therefore, in order for higher conversion one must create a well designed funnel. So in order for successful conversions, you need to optimize your funnel before you begin the ground work on your social media strategy.