Social Media Content Strategy: How to Turn Leads into Paying Customers and Double Your Sales in 30 Days (2-Way Actionable Technique)
I know a lot of people have struggled with social media marketing when they first started out. I’m no exception.
After years of trying out various social media content marketing approaches, I came to realise that you need to have an effective content planning to stand any chance of generating leads and increase the possibility of sales.
I’ve helped a number of creative professionals to achieve their goals. But not without tried, tested, failed and improved efforts to devise a technique that now, works!
So today, I’m going to show you how to double your sales by turning your social media followers AND viewers (leads) into paying customers in a simple step-by-step process.
The Two-Way Actionable Technique
The Two-Way Actionable Technique refers to actions that you and your leads can take.
In this article, I outlined 4 simple steps which you can put into action, as well as to get your leads to take action almost right away.
But first of all, let me show you why this technique works so well.
To draw more audience who particularly liked African art & culture, I applied the strategies to promote an artist on Instagram.
This post has garnered an engagement rate of more than 23% to date.
But what surprised me the most was the number of shares the post has generated. With more shares, this artist’s work gets seen by more people and most of them aren’t even our followers.
And more surprises here! Two out of the four artwork we promoted for the artist got sold. He has since made printed version of his artworks to meet more sales demand. His number of Instagram followers also grew.
Now’s your turn! This technique works without the need for you to spend money on ads to promote your social media content.
Here’s the step-by-step process.
The 4-Step Process
- Step 1: Create engaging posts
- Step 2: Monitor the performance of your contents
- Step 3: Learn and improve
- Step 4: Repeat, indefinitely!
Step 1: Create engaging posts
I call the first step, the building process. As with any good structure, it needs a solid foundation. As mentioned, an effective content planning is the foundation.
Here are 3 actionable strategies you can implement:
Strategy#1 – Post something great
I’m assuming you already know who your target audience is at this point. So, when you create a post, get creative and add some WOW! factor. Contents that are relatable and provide value to your target audience draw more viewership.
You don’t need to be an artist or a designer to be creative; it’s easy.
For example:
If it’s about a product you want to promote, explain the benefits with visuals. Research has shown that people tend to grasp information better when you put a picture in their mind.
If it’s a service, tell people the solutions you have to a problem your target audience may be facing. You can do so by creating a 20-60 second explainer reel showing the end result when your solution is applied.
If you’re an artist, adding a personal touch, story-telling elements and/or giveaways in your post will increase the impact of your content especially to people who love art.
Strategy#2 – Add a CTA
Next, it’s time to focus on getting your leads to take action on each post, reel, or story. Great content not only impresses, but also encourages your audience to interact with you. And what better way to do this than adding a call-to-action (CTA) element.
CTAs signal good intent to social media platform algorithms. They generate measurable data toward your social media goals.
Just make it simple for your leads to take action. They could be a link to your landing page or online shop. If you want your followers to re-post or re-tweet, mention it with a ‘Share this post’ indicator. You can also add an attractive looking ‘Shop Now’ button for online purchases.
Another effective way to get viewers to interact with you is by posting a question. It could be a fun question to boost your engagement rate or a question that’s relevant to your business. So, ask away and interact with them. However, be wary of social media users who’d take advantage of this approach to scam you. The rule of thumb here is nothing more than to get your leads to take action.
Strategy#3 – Add hashtags
Hashtags help you generate more leads by targeting your social media postings to a wider audience. They also encourage user engagements especially from people who are following a specific trend or interest.
As content creators, you may already have a tendency to add hashtags in your social media postings. But do you know which hashtags are suitable for your brand, product and target audience? Knowing which ones work best gives you an edge over your competitors.
Here are the best resources to find well-performing hashtags to use in your niche:
- Use the auto-suggest feature – to find popular and trending hashtags on platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn.
- Use TikTok’s search bar – to find popular topics for hashtag ideas.
- Learn from influencers or your top competitors – look at what hashtags they are using.
- Use hashtag marketing tools – like Hashtagify for best hashtag suggestions.
- Follow a popular hashtag challenge – in your niche to see what actions are tied to a hashtag.
- Add a local hashtag – to target specific area for your local business, type in a state or a city to find suitable hashtags.
Step 2: Monitor the performance of your contents
Enter the measuring process. You’ll need to be able to see growth in leads and sales as a direct result of your plan.
You can do a performance analysis on your contents either with the social network’s analytics feature or a marketing tool of your choice like Google Analytics, HootSuite, Hashtagify, Buffer, or Semrush.
To begin with, I highly recommended that you monitor the following metrics on a weekly basis.
- Reach/Views: This metric measures how many people have seen your post on social media. More reach equals better conversion rates.
- Clicks: This is the CTA metrics. You’d want to know how many people have taken action by clicking on a link. More clicks = a larger possibility of your leads converting to paying customers.
- Engagement rate: Usually measured in percentage, this metric shows how engaged your audience in taking actions like sharing or liking your posts, commenting, and of course clicking a link.
- Hashtag performance: By tracking this metric with a tool of your choice, you can determine which hashtag names work best for your business or brand so that you can double-down on their usage.
That’s it for step 2. Nothing complicated here. Now, let’s move on.
Step 3: Learn and improve
With a weekly performance review from Step 2, you can quickly learn which posts are performing well, worse, or better than expected.
Based on the data gathered, you’ll also know what to improve, how to improve, and double down on the social media content strategies that are working to best suit your target audience.
Pretty straight forward, isn’t it?
Step 4: Repeat, indefinitely!
Yes, repeat steps 1 – 4, indefinitely.
The Two-Way Actionable Technique is applicable to every niche, industry, and social media platform. This is a dynamic technique that has a potential to provide sustainable business growth.
So, feel free to use it to reach additional marketing goals such as increasing your social media followers, email subscribers, website traffic and the likes. Then, continue to post with your content plans that are working, as mentioned in Step 1.
Regardless of how often you post, just be sure to know your sales and marketing goals and maintain a consistent approach to publishing awesome contents!
Conclusion
Ready to put this technique into use? It will require hard work.
But with this step-by-step guideline, creating your social media contents to drive sales won’t be as daunting. Consider it done, your effort will pay off.
Let me know how did it go in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
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