Make It Your Nature to NurtureMake It Your Nature to Nurture
How to Nurture a Prospect Through Facebook Even If They Never Opt-In to Your Email ListHow to Nurture a Prospect Through Facebook Even If They Never Opt-In to Your Email List
by Kim Walsh-Phillips
If you are driving straight to the sale with cold leads, then you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
Why? Because going straight to the sale means you will only close people who are ready to buy right now and from you.
People are made up of two types, Divers and Skimmers (courtesy of Andy Jenkins). Divers jump right in when they see something they like. Skimmers need to test the water first with their pinky toe, talk to their friends about what the temperature is like, and slowly enter the pool. Unfortunately, only 15% of buyers are Divers.
By structuring your marketing and sales funnel as Magnet 
Opt-in Monetize (MOM), you are able to bring in qualified prospects at each phase of decision making and nurture them into a yes. This brings you the greatest chance of closing the deal when the sales portion of the message occurs.
The problem becomes a matter of what you do if your prospects won’t opt-in. For whatever reason, they won’t give you their email address. It might seem impossible to nurture them into a sale. Those leads are lost forever, or at least that used to be the case.
Using Website Retargeting, you can nurture a prospect from a cold lead to a sale without ever sending him or her an email. Facebook’s Website Custom Audiences allows you reach out to people who otherwise would be lost.
Facebook’s Website Custom Audiences gives advertisers the opportunity to create Facebook ads that reach website visitors—visitors to any page or to a specific page. You can do some pretty ninja-like things with this feature: customize sales messages, reinforce a purchase, or nurture a prospect to a sale without an email address.
You Can Still Get The MOM Formula Without An Opt-in.
I’m not suggesting you should ignore list building. But you also shouldn’t ignore those who aren’t yet comfortable sharing personal contact information.
With Website Custom Audiences, you can target ads at people based on how far along they’ve moved in the funnel. How? Because they are getting cookied (a short line of text that a website puts on your computer’s hard drive when you access that website) and Facebook is tracking it. (I know, a bit creepy as consumers, but fantastic for us marketers.)
1. Develop Dual Messaging
Let’s use an example of my Six Social Media Secrets free report offer. (See Figure 10.1 on page 143.)
FIGURE 10.1: Six Social Media Secrets Free Report Offer
Once people opt-in to your list, you can begin to show them valuable content in their newsfeed in order to nurture them before making the sale. Or you can offer a special offer, product program, or service right after they opt-in, sending the message via email and in their newsfeed.
With messaging in more than one channel, you increase the depth of your targeting and give a greater likelihood of response.
Think of this as your sales funnel. Warm them up, so that over time they build trust in you and are more likely to purchase from you. And it can be kept very simple.
1. Create an ad driving people to your free report.
2. Create an ad targeting those who visited the landing page but didn’t opt-in.
3. Create an ad targeting those who do opt-in.
The second ad is targeted only at those who visited that landing page today and didn’t convert. The messaging in that second ad understands that the targeted users know what the free report is, but may need further convincing. So prompt them to ask any questions they may have about the report in the comments.
In testing for the third, when we lead with one or two valuable tips before asking for the sale, we convert more overall sales at a higher profit. Of course, you should do your own testing and see what works best for your market.
2. Create a Website Custom Audience for Each Page
For the above example to work, you need to create a Website Custom Audience (WCA) for each page of your sequence.
In this example, I target anyone who went to my free report, but didn’t see the thank-you page for opting in, meaning they didn’t provide their email address. (See Figure 10.2 on page 145.)
Duration is up to you. Clearly, the shorter the duration the greater the relevance. But, of course, the shorter the duration, the smaller the audience (and the smaller the budget you can assign).
Create a WCA for each landing page of your sequence. This way, you can create Ad #2 to reach anyone who saw Landing Page #1, for example; and then Ad #3 to reach anyone who saw Landing Page #2.
But you can also use this method to reach people who have seen specific pages of your website. If you are a home remodeler, you could send a gift certificate (others may call this a coupon) to those who visit your gallery page of Before-and-Afters. Or if you sell products, take a page from Amazon’s playbook and send follow-up messages with the product they left behind.
If you are a service-based business, try sending a free white paper offer to someone who visited your “About Us” or “Services” page. Utilize your Facebook newsfeed as an extension of your sales funnel.
FIGURE 10.2: Facebook Custom Audience to Target People Who Landed on the Free Report Page but Did Not Opt-In
Here is an example:
1. Lead Magnet: Target all website visitors.
2. Landing Page #2: Target visitors to Lead Magnet.
3. Landing Page #3: Target visitors to Landing Page #2.
4. Landing Page #4: Sell to visitors to Landing Page #3.
3. Nurture Before Asking for the Opt-In
With increased mistrust of online brands, Facebook’s Relevancy ranking affects your ad cost and reach distribution. We have been experimenting with Facebook’s ad retargeting to offer content before asking for the opt-in or sale.
The results have been pretty spectacular.
Here’s our campaign:
1. Target Look-Alike plus interest.
2. We offer content first in a series of tips that do not require an opt-in. (See Figure 10.3.)
FIGURE 10.3: Facebook Ad Without Required Opt-In
Tip #1 tells them the reward they will get when they click on the ad as well as a sneak peak into the first tip.
As in Figure 10.4 on page 147, tip #2 congratulates them for opening tip #1, and tells them why to click again. This same strategy repeats for the next two tips. (See Figures 10.5 and 10.6 on page 148.)
FIGURE 10.4: Facebook Ad for Tip #2
The final in the series gives them a bonus free report to gain their opt-in. (See Figure 10.7 on page 149.) Once they opt-in, they are invited to sign up for an upcoming webinar. This is the monetization step.
Start with value, and walk your prospects to the sale. M + O + M. After all, MOM does know best.
FIGURE 10.5: Facebook Ad for Tip #3
FIGURE 10.6: Facebook Ad for Tip #4
FIGURE 10.7: Facebook Ad Congratulates and Rewards Those Who Clicked on All Four Tips
Nurture Leads Into Sales: The EngagementNurture Leads Into Sales: The Engagement
by Kim Walsh-Phillips
After a first date, 99.99% of couples are not ready to get married.
And I am not sure I could be friends with the other .01%.
Most sane people need to date for a while to build trust, develop a strong connection, and make sure the other isn’t a complete psychopath. (The third one is a fairly accurate description of a lot of the people I dated while living in South Florida.)
The same goes with nurturing your relationship with new leads from Facebook. They just met you, and the majority of them will not be ready to make a purchase right away. But they are your treasure chest for profit. The unconverted leads already identified themselves as interested in what you have to offer. They are no longer cold leads as they already received at least one thing of value from you.
Of course you have the option of passively sitting and waiting for them to convert into a sale. It’s a bad option, but that is how a lot of businesses operate. They focus on lead generation only and don’t give any attention to turning those valuable warm leads into a sale.
Most businesses aren’t like Cynthia Samuels of Inspired Business Services offering high quality content each week via a free ezine once people sign up for her list.
Inspired Business Services’ mission is to unlock the potential of every individual and company by providing them with the business tools needed to thrive. They provide clients with the resources and support needed to market and grow the business of their dreams. Inspired Business Services also provides the critical information needed to attract, hire, assess, develop, and retain top talent as clients’ businesses grow.
Or like Livewire Digital, sending an industry trends and technology report to their list each week.
Livewire’s mission is to enhance your business’s revenue and reduce costs by providing your current and future customers (as well as employees) with self-service information and documents through secure, easy-to-use, multichannel delivery systems, including kiosks, websites, digital signage, and mobile applications.
Engage Effectively
Because Elite Digital Group and I are known for being direct response social media marketers, we often have prospects who are also direct response marketers. We love working with those who already understand marketing to sell, instead of spending money on branding or awareness-only campaigns.
Leave that to the big advertising agencies or the graphic designers-turned-marketers. They have plenty of ways to waste their clients’ money.
There is occasionally a conflict with our clients and prospects though. We can sometimes find ourselves in a battle to explain that you can’t just sell on social media. You have to take time to engage as well.
If you sell only, your costs will be higher for each click and your sales will suffer if they come at all. Sell only and you won’t be successful.
Engagement in-network carries multiple benefits.
BUILD TRUST WITH YOUR FOLLOWERS THROUGH CONNECTIONS AND CELEBRITY POSITIONING
Social media is similar to dating. To develop lifelong customer relationships, you need to build trust over time. Offering engaging and valuable content is an opportunity to demonstrate that you are THE expert in your industry.
GROW YOUR REFERRALS
When people interact with you, their social networks see it. This is one of the most powerful things about direct response social media networking as opposed to any other type of marketing. Referrals are built into the platform. Businesses are smart to consistently pay attention to this fact and utilize it to its fullest ability.
CONDITION THEM TO RESPOND
If you have an engaged audience with people paying attention to what you say and interacting with you, then they are ready to buy as soon as you are ready to ask them for the sale. The more your networks are engaged, the more likely they will respond to your calls to action to purchase later on. Lose them with irrelevant content or a too heavy sales pitch too soon and you can lose them forever.
INCREASE YOUR FREE REACH
When it comes to Facebook, the more comments, likes, and shares you get, the higher your engagement level is and the more Facebook will show your posts to your network for free. If you can keep that engagement level up when you aren’t promoting anything, when it comes time to promote, you will have more reach into the newsfeeds of your target audience.
Strategies to Create Engagement
In Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World, Gary Vaynerchuk says, “It’s hard for a business to strike the right balance among competing priorities of sales and engagement. Success comes with engagement first and sales second.”
(I didn’t agree with all of what was in Gary’s book and thought some sections contradicted others, but I do agree with the book’s main premise. There were enough clever marketing strategies to make it worth the read.
Start with value and only then ask for the sale.)
CREATE ORIGINAL VISUAL CONTENT
Social media is a visual, quick-paced medium that requires you not only compete with other businesses, but also with content being produced by your target market’s friends and family, all of which is being shown on the same information feed.
To get the attention from your prospect away from “What Aunt Mary is making for dinner tonight,” create original free content that invites the reader to share.
This is your opportunity to establish yourself as the thought leader and THE expert in your industry, so create visuals out of your quotes and blog posts. I recommend taking time to pull together 90 quotes and designing them internally or outsourcing them to freelancers. You will then have three months of visuals you can continue to rotate on your newsfeed.
I provide social media support to my church as part of my mission work. While listening to one of my favorite sermons right from my phone (using the mobile app Word Swag), this post was created (see Figure 10.8):
FIGURE 10.8: Tower Hill Church Ad Created Using Word Swag
Quotes for The Fertility Center offer encouragement to those who may be struggling with fertility issues. (See Figure 10.9.)
FIGURE 10.9: The Fertility Center Ad Created Using Word Swag
That’s 302 people reached for free on a page that only has 398 total fans for Tower Hill Church and 535 people reached for a page that only has 712 fans of The Fertility Center. Ignore what you are hearing. Organic reach is NOT dead.
We also pull quotes from my blogs and create multiple images, putting them on rotation. Here’s an example (see Figure 10.10):
FIGURE 10.10: Blog Quote Used as Featured Ad
See Figure 10.11 on page 156 for one from a GKIC Leader.
FEATURE YOUR CLIENTS, CUSTOMERS, OR PATIENTS IN A Q AND A
Your audience is interested in the people who choose to do business you. It’s your “Who Says So Besides You.”
Feature them, their stories, likes, habits, and hobbies along with photos and a few quirky facts to give your audience engaging content while building trust with your prospects, because they see other people just like them. This also gives your customers a reason to give you recommendations. When they are featured, they will share it with their friends and family.
FIGURE 10.11: GKIC Leader Quote Used as Featured Ad
The customer feature also works well in heavily regulated industries because you are not asking for a testimonial or even to talk about what your company did for the prospect. You are simply offering up human interest information from one person who chose to do business with you. (See Figure 10.12 on page 157.)
Build the customer Q and A in a system for ease of use and systemization. If you have an automated marketing program in place, like Infusionsoft, then create a series of questions that are sent automatically when customers gets to a certain point in their customer life cycle with you. Even if only a small percentage responds, you can expect to have rotating posts throughout the year.
FIGURE 10.12: GKIC Insider’s Circle Featured Member Charlie McDermott
ASK QUESTIONS
The simple act of posing a question on social media is the quickest and simplest way to signal that you’re looking for input. Being willing to ask for feedback and listen to what is and isn’t working not only helps your business grow, it also builds loyalty.
Oreo cookies, at over 40 million engaged fans, is very successful at this. Nabisco infamously ran the cookie or crème campaign—getting over 1 million people to answer on the Oreo Facebook page. It was a campaign to engage millennials and obtain contact information for its customers.
USE FILL-IN-THE-BLANK POSTS
Fill-in-the-blank posts are a go-to way to increase engagement. An example from our client is:
Fill in the blank: I am a ____ woman. (See Figure 10.13 on page 158.)
FIGURE 10.13: Fill-in-the-Blank Posts Inspire Increased Engagement
GET PERSONAL
Occasionally share something about your life that is more personal in nature. It could be a picture of your pet, you and your family on a great vacation, or your staff gathering for a brainstorming meeting where you include shots of your white board after you’ve solved all the problems of the world. When you share some of your authenticity online, generally your fans respond well to it. Here are a couple of examples (see Figures 10.14 and 10.15 on page 159).
FIGURE 10.14: Share Some Personal Posts to Build Authenticity
FIGURE 10.15: Fans Respond Well to Personal Posts
Examples of posts that are “behind the scenes” and help build trust with an audience.
WRITE A PHOTO CAPTION
Post a funny or unique photo of your company or your products at work or another photo you find online and ask people to make up their own caption. These posts can be smaller giveaways where the winners get coupons or other prizes. It’s a tried-and-true way to keep your visitors entertained.
We recently did this for Ron LeGrand, and the results were phenomenal.
From my Account Manager leading this project at the time, Mary Lorson:
When our client shared a quirky photo of himself looking at a horse, we saw an opportunity. We posted the photo on Facebook, and took a lighthearted approach with this post: “Okay everyone, this photo is BEGGING for a good caption. We’d love to hear your ideas!” (See Figure 10.16.)
FIGURE 10.16: Ron LeGrand Photo Posted with Request for Caption to Inspire Engagement
We posted our own comments to keep the mood light, and provided replies or “Likes” for each suggestion to keep engagement high. After the first few days we “spontaneously” suggested that since suggestions were so good, we should hold a contest. Two days later, we announced the winning caption would win a customized T-shirt, and created a link to keep the contest legal. In the next few weeks, we created only two additional newsfeed posts, with links back to the photo, reminding people of the contest. Over the 20 days the contest ran, we received more than 70 entries and 24 Likes, all without any media spend. (See Figure 10.17.)
FIGURE 10.17: Overwhelming Engagement to Ron LeGrand’s Photo Caption Contest
LINK YOUR BLOG
Social media should be your most important tool for cross-promotion on the internet.
A great place to start when creating content is to write a list of the Top 25 Questions you get from prospects. Record yourself answering these questions and send the recording to a transcription service. You will then have 25 weeks’ worth of blogs.
If you have the budget, I recommend paying to promote your posts so more people are exposed to your value-rich content. This will serve as a cornerstone to building your network and establishing yourself as the number-one authority and expert in your niche.
FIGURE 10.18: Ron LeGrand Viral Post Example
FIGURE 10.19: Blog Promotion
I promote my blog every week on Facebook to my Facebook fans. This has doubled our overall website traffic each month. (See Figure 10.19.)
SHARE AN INDUSTRY ARTICLE
You should always make building credibility a priority, especially with social media. Showing that you’re on top of industry news solidifies your place in that industry. It makes your company feel more legitimate and more knowledgeable. (See Figure 10.20 on page 171).
However, don’t simply post a link to the article. Lazy marketers do this, and it doesn’t work. If this is all you can do, then don’t bother being on social media.
FIGURE 10.20: Share an Industry Article
Instead of being a re-poster, add your comments, and ask a thoughtful question as to what the reader thinks about the information shared. This makes you a thought leader and content curator.
Other effective things to share are articles that are new or trending. The reason for sharing is to help keep your fans ahead of the curve, and then they are more likely to respond and share. Commentary is still required for engagement.
ASK TRIVIA QUESTIONS
A trivia question about your business or your industry can be a fresh way to keep your audience coming back. Offer a prize that is relevant for your perfect prospect, such as a gift certificate toward a purchase or a book by you or a supporting author. This can create page engagement AND give you potential leads.
To make sure this happens despite how crazy your week may get, systematize the process using a form tied into your CRM and a set schedule of prize awarding.
Make sure to announce the winner each week publicly to encourage others to participate in the following week’s post. (Plus, this gives you another post and another chance for engagement.)
SINGLE OUT A FAN OF THE WEEK
Celebrating your fans and followers is another way to create engagement. You can randomly pick someone each week, choose from those who engaged most, or put a requirement in place, such as those who answered a specific question on a post.
Singling out a repeat visitor will add a sophisticated layer of interaction to your social media profiles and encourage others to do the same. As an added bonus, this is another strategy that has built-in social sharing.
USE HUMOR
Oreo cookies is fantastic at this. Unlike a lot of product and brand pages, its pages do not take themselves too seriously.
Example 1: A humorous exchange between Oreo and Kit Kat. Oreo is owned by Nabisco, and Kit Kat is owned by Nestle, so they are direct competitors.
First, someone tweeted this:
Can tell I like chocolate abit too much when I’m following @kitkatand @oreo hahahahahah
LauraEllen (@Laura_ellenxx) March 11, 2013
Two days later, Kit Kat’s social media marketers responded with a clever challenge to Oreo with an image of a tic-tac-toe board and a Kit Kat “x” in the middle.
Several hours later, @Oreo responded with and image of the Kit Kat “x” being eaten and the tweet:
“Sorry @kitkat we couldn’t resist. #GiveOreoABreak”
In another campaign, Oreo cookies had a goal to engage millennials. The strategy was to become more relevant with the Millennial crowd by re-imagining pop culture through the eyes of Oreo. The program, Daily Twist, used daily events and trends to come up with a new image each day such as Comi-Con and New York Fashion Week. The campaign reached more than 230 million people for free.
POST BEHIND-THE-SCENES PHOTOS
Your Facebook fans want to feel as though they have a “backstage pass” to you and your business. Post photos of your team at work, setting up events, planning a new product, etc. (See Figure 10.21 on page 174.) They will eat this content up and it will help to strengthen their relationship with you.
This is also an effective strategy to develop buzz and interest in your events and product launches. Get them excited before you ever even put your resources on sale.
BE CONTROVERSIAL
Being at one extreme or another is a tactic publishers like Huffington Post use with much success. Make it work for you.
Stand out in a crowded marketplace, calling out your shared enemy with your fans. (See Figure 10.22 on page 175.)
A few more engaging ideas:
• Restaurant: How do you dress your burger? Photo competition
• Accountant: Biggest cost reduction you put in place this year
• Furniture: Room in need of a makeover
FIGURE 10.21: Share Behind-the-Scenes Photos
• Lawyer: How would you judge this case?
• Any business: A picture of one of your customers along with a fun fact about your product or service or question.
All are interactive and entertaining, but stay focused on the topic of authority and target market.
FIGURE 10.22: Be Controversial
GET YOUR FANS INVOLVED
For The Fertility Center, we have found two types of posts to be most effective:
1. Inspirational quote images that are sharable. These range in topics from staying strong in trying times to believing in miracles and keeping a positive outlook.
2. Question or fill-in-the-blank—Asking questions can be a dicey game. Some audiences respond very well to questions, while others may hear crickets. The best advice is to keep it as simple as possible. A recent question we asked on The Fertility Center page was: It is the little things that brighten the day. Fill in the blank “Today, ____ was my silver lining.”
But the most effective thing we have done was to get its fans involved.
When we were looking for patient stories for an ebook we put together, we turned to Facebook. We posted “Calling all past patients! Would you be willing to share your journey to inspire and help others struggling with infertility? If so, just send us a private message saying ‘I want to help!’ and we’ll get you all the details!”
The response was absolutely overwhelming. Within an hour we had more than we needed for the ebook, and we gained brand ambassadors who were willing to help answer questions potential patients ask on The Fertility Center’s Facebook page. (See Figure 10.23.)
FIGURE 10.23: The Fertility Center Engaged Fans to Get Involved
There was no shortage of loyal patients who had been helped by The Fertility Center. We weren’t asking them for a referral. We weren’t asking them for a testimonial. We were asking if they would be willing to respond to a few comments on the page.
We knew that if the response came from a past patient, someone who has walked that same path, it would mean so much more than if it came from the company. Here’s an example:
Comment from Lauren: My husband and I haven’t been able to conceive a child on our own. We are losing hope and don’t think we can afford fertility treatments. What can we do?
Response from Company: Lauren, we have so many patients who have the same concerns as you. We’d love to have a conversation with you about your financial options.
Response from Past Patient: Hi Lauren—I totally know how you feel, your story sounds very similar to mine. You have to keep the faith, that’s what we did, and then we found The Fertility Center and everything changed. We now have a healthy baby boy and couldn’t be happier. I know how tough it can be, but the staff at The Fertility Center really helps ease your fears. Oh and they have a lot of different financial options too. Make sure you tell Kathy at the front desk “hi” for me. She’s so sweet. Best of luck to you!
Over the years, The Fertility Center’s Facebook page has developed into somewhat of a self-propelled online support group where fans can turn to each other when they need support and also share times of joy. While it’s important that the company keep a steady presence of commentary on the page, in situations like this one it’s best to take the back seat. Engaging for engagement alone is not a profit-driven tactic and should be avoided at all costs. Used as part of a well-thought-out and optimized sales funnel, it is a vital component of an effective digital sales strategy.
#NoBSsm Tweetable Takeaways#NoBSsm Tweetable Takeaways
Using Website Retargeting, you can nurture a prospect from a cold lead to a sale without ever sending him or her an email. #NoBSsm
Use Facebook’s Custom Website Audiences for ninja marketing: customize sales messages, reinforce purchases, and nurture a prospect. #NoBSsm
Engage with your followers to build trust and nurture them into a sale. #NoBSsm
Start with value and only then ask for the sale. #NoBSsm