Why save your sales pitch for meetings or phone calls when you could be pitching all over the web, continuously, to people you know are interested?
How much easier would life be if you could generate leads on demand?
Well, this can be achieved with the successful implementation of paid social media advertising. We’ve sold brand new yachts (including the one below), houses, baby care products, survival equipment, all sorts of merchandise over the web. Time served. Money spent. We’ve got the t-shirt and so does everyone else we sold it to. This article is to show you how it can be applied for your business. (Below is an example of our most recent super yacht campaign run on Facebook)
As a further example, our latest campaign has been to generate leads and make sales for a new type of boat called the F-RIB. Basically, a folding boat which has a patented design - we’re working to produce buyers via facebook (the process for LinkedIn is identical). We currently capture leads, that is; email addresses, mobile numbers and postcodes from interested buyers for just 70p. The cheapest model of F-RIB costs £2,200. Have a look below at the advert and the results:
When it works the ROI is quite incredible. The skill is in the advert content and the targeting. Below, I’ll introduce you to some techniques and ideas you’re welcome to steal. This process involves actually training the social media platform to find new customers who match your current high ticket clientele, advertising services/products to them directly and generating leads. From there, I’ll describe how to automate this process.
NOTE* from here well explain the process with reference to LinkedIn but Facebook and Instagram offer exactly the same service - with Facebook being by far the most powerful.
First of all, you need to utilise paid advertising on LinkedIn. Here you can learn how to access the platform. This is an absolute must if you want to generate regular, reliable leads. Organic (free) strategies are very labour intensive and you are at the mercy of the platform owner i.e. if Linkedin change their algorithm then this dramatically affects your reach and engagement. Whereas if you decide to pay for your ads, you have a greater degree of control over how many people view them, as long as your adverts are engaging and your targeting is accurate. Not only that, but the analysis is instant and thorough; allowing you to test, improve and keep bring costs down. Not something you can do with old forms of print advertising.
Step 1
Ensure you LinkedIn profile (business and/or personal) is appealing - there’s little point in running great ads if your profile is sub par and turns business away. Here’s a quick checklist;
a) Profile photo - ensure it’s a high quality photo, it can either be a headshot or depict you at work.
b) Cover photo- Keep it clean and simple, ensure it doesn’t include too much text and fits properly (not info hiding behind the profile picture.
c) Headline - Treat this like a headline to an advert. Give your position, company and then some zest. Detail what your work achieves or outcomes that clients can expect from your work. KEYWORDS - ensure the headline includes keywords that prospects would type into the search bar to find your services.
d) Summary - Treat this like an elevator pitch. Describe your background and how you have applied your skill set to achieve your goals. Keep it simple and concise. Show your ability to describe your value/ process in a way that is easily understood - an attribute which is vitally important when pitching for business. Also, include as many keywords here as possible.
Step 2
Install the Linkedin Pixel. This is a piece of machine learning code, provided for free by Linkedin, which effectively acts as the brain behind your advertising. It analyses who visits your website and uses that information to build up a profile of your ideal customer. The key thing is that it is always getting smarter, the sooner you install the code the better, even if you don’t intend to run adverts right away. Experts leverage this information to target your adverts. You can find the installation process on Linkedin. This is a vital step if you want to capture high quality leads, from HNWIs who match you current customers. It simple for any developer to install and is pretty easy to figure out for yourself.
Step 3 Create a ‘Custom Audience’ using your email marketing list. This is one of the juicy bits. Once you’ve uploaded your mailing list, firstly, Linkedin will allow you to run adverts to customers for remarketing but, the best thing, it allows you to create and expand to new people who match the characteristics of your current customer base, hence, allowing you to run your adverts to new prospects you know will be interested. So if you uploaded a list of your best clientele, then you can reach new high paying prospects. The Pixel gets more precise with the more data it sees. So, your ads get more accurate. This phenomenal technique completely takes the guesswork out of who to target and ensures that every penny you spend works hard.
Step 4
Create an audience from your website visitors. Have you been the subject of a retargeting advert? You know, when you look at pair of shoes or a car, then you’ll start to notice adverts pop up on other websites offering you Addidas or Fords? Well that’s what this allows you to do. You can create audiences from website visitors who have been to certain pages and target them elsewhere with a personalised ad offering the service/product they viewed. To put into context, a good hit rate for converting first time website visitors is 4% but when you retarget them and bring them back for a second time, that hit rate can get as high a 40%.
Step 5
Build a Sales funnel.
These allow you to completely automate the lead generation process from start to finish. You catch attention with an engaging advert containing a video (sales pitch) or high quality photo and a sharp headline. You then take them to a landing page/advertorial (one page website) which gives full details of the product, testimonials/ reviews and does all the objection handling. This page contains “call to actions (CTAs)” which are buttons asking the visitor to take action - we use these to ask for the visitors contact details; name, mobile, email, postcode etc. Once they enter their information then you have your lead. The idea of the funnel is that you get more commitment as they go through, thereby, qualifying them more and if they give their information then you know they’re interested.
Examples
A financial advisor might run ads to millennial HNWIs, "5 characteristics of investment geniuses."The ad would have a link to a landing page which describes the type of investments famous investors made, detailing their glory, then ask if they want to know about similar opportunities available today. They enter their details, you have your lead.
An insurance broker might target new home buyers who are newly married with a headline “You build the family, we’ll keep them safe”- then link to an advertorial describing how their cover will keep them safe with CTAs asking for lead information.
The Funnel starts with an advert that you build using the LinkedIn Advert platform which you’ll find in the top right drop down menu.The ads (creatives) are made up of constituent parts which are detailed below. NOTE* it all starts with the advert - if it’s low quality and unappealing it doesn’t matter who you target- it isn’t going to work.
1. Copy
Use the headline to highlight the benefit of your product/service for HNWIs. “How to avoid paying too much for your home insurance” or “5 up and coming areas to buy real estate that no one else knows about.” Keep it short, keep it snappy. You can then go into much more detail about your service/ product highlighting more of the solutions your offering provides. Tell the reader how the products will improve their mood, their day to day life, their status or their value to others. It’s these emotive angles you need to take to really get engagement in your ad. For HNWI’s status is always a good one to go for. The table below helps us enormously when trying to produce ad copy. The example is for a financial advisor:
2. Media (Picture, video etc)
Whether you decide to go for a photo or a video (recommended). Ensure it’s high quality and it fits the parameters given to you by the platform. Doesn’t look particularly professional when there’s a black border around the image or worse yet it’s cut off at the sides.
Video is king on social media now. Facebook announced they want to be up to 100% video by 2022. LinkedIn is no different with video being consumed 60% more than other types of media. And it’s so easy to do. Introduce yourself with a quick selfie video taken in the office and explain what you’re trying to do. Keep it short, 2 minutes max. Most smartphones have excellent cameras now which will do just fine. Remember, HNWI’s appreciate professionalism and repel time wasters so keep it concise, clear but conversational.
Again for maximum visitor convenience, centre the landing page around a video. Here’s a few approaches;
a) Webinar
Some of you may have signed up for a “Webinar” before. They’re a great way to sell. It’s a prerecorded video which describes your product or service. Basically, record the best sales pitch you can and back it up with testimonials, results etc and you can then invite people to view it. Its a no brainer to produce a webinar- why would you save your sales pitch for face-to-face meetings when you can show it repeatedly across the web?
The best tool to use here is Webinarjam. It allows you to schedule your webinar to run every 15 minutes and gives you various “pop up” options to capture contact details throughout. It also allows viewers to comment and discuss through a group “chat” which is displayed at the side of the screen
b) Lead pages (The example shows our advertorial for the F-RIB)
This is a great tool which enables you to build advertorials. Imagine you’re in the offices of a potential client pitching. What questions are you normally asked, what objections do they normally have? Include it all. It has simple drag n drop templates making it fairly straight forward and you can easily connect it up to your website domain. You want to include as much information as possible. Explain the ‘before, during and after’ (using the value table above), include reviews to prove results, address any potential questions/ issues by detailing frequently asked questions. Don’t make the page too busy and be sure to upload a video to do the brunt of the sales works.
3. You can add an extra page to your current website with a secret URL which you only make available in the advert. This may involve paying your developer but you’ll save costs eventually as both Webinarjam and Lead Pages charge monthly fees.
Once this is built you should install a new Pixel on this page to track visitors. You can then retarget visitors who leave early, with deals and discounts at a later date.
NOTE* Advertorials and webinars must include multiple CTAs requesting the same thing, varying call to actions can confuse visitors and lowers conversion rate.
Launch
Once your ad is created and connected to your landing page you just need to select your target audience, which we discussed above, and you’re ready to go.
We suggest doing some testing at this point. Spend £5 over three or four variations of your ad, test different creatives with different audience sets and gauge performance through engagement and conversions.
The ultimate scenario is when you have optimised each part of the funnel so that it generates quality leads at volume.
Think of the time saved if you can effectively turn on a tap and get business? This can now be a reality.
We want to help you get there. Follow the link below if would like to schedule a 30 minute strategy call for your business where we can help you with ANYTHING social media https://calendly.com/euan-mackenzie/30min.
Speak soon!