- Data is an essential commodity in today's digital economy, and social media is a great place to get quality data from your audience.
- Email addresses are one of the most valuable pieces of data that brands can take from customers, and growing an email list is essential to anyone doing business online.
- There are several effective social media strategies you can use to encourage users to give you their email addresses.
Considering that there are over 3.3 billion social media users, it's no wonder that people are trying to find new ways to get social media to generate leads.
More people are using social networks every single day. Since last year alone, there has been a recorded 13% increase of social media users, and 3.196 billion people globally have some form of social networking account, whether it be Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest or any of the other big-name networks.
We want to take a careful look at some of these marketing techniques and see how you can build a lean, more effective lead list by properly marketing your product or brand through social media. Here are a few tips to help you take your marketing game to the next step.
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1. Create custom ads.
One of the best ways to reach your target audience is by releasing ads to them about your product or service. Facebook Ads is a great tool to use so you can have a strong reach on the most popular social media outlet.
The Facebook Ads program lets you create custom ads with your own images, your own copy and your own headline to attract the right audience. Once you've created your ads, you can use the Audience Insights tab to change the location, gender and interests of the people you want to see your ad.
Targeting the right audience gives you a better chance of them subscribing to your email list to see what else you have to offer. You can use this in tandem with one-time discounts and promotional content to keep the users engaged and increase your subscriber count.
2. Promote gated content.
Gated content is another excellent way to grow your lead list through social media. In a nutshell, gated content is content that cannot be accessed by a user until they sign up for your email list.
It may seem like a challenge to get people to sign up for your list based just on content, but that's where your marketing techniques come in. As you promote your gated articles online, make sure you express to the user why this material is so important.
Expressing value to the customer will help encourage them to sign up for your list to see what the source content contains. If they are interested, you'll have a long-term customer who is engaged in your brand, the service you offer and your knowledge.
3. Create videos.
Visual content has a 40% greater chance of being shared than traditional text content. This is because people are extremely visual. The creation of smartphones has allowed users to browse their favorite social media sites at their own pace, and, now, people have more time to dive into videos and images.
If you want to grow your email list on social media, try creating some viral videos to pull in both your targeted audience and generally interested people. Monitor your social media and website analytics following the videos. Dollar Shave Club did a great job of creating awesome visual content when its brand launched. It focused on humor, convenience, and price, and it's now one of the most popular razor companies in the world.
4. Embrace retargeting.
Retargeting customers has grown in popularity due to automation. It's now easier than ever to track customer behavior and help lead them to your brand if they leave your site sooner than you'd like.
In a similar vein, retargeting ads on social media are a great opportunity to bring in more customers by reminding them why they were on your site in the first place. You can set ads to appear based on their previous behavior on your website. For example, if they made it to the cart page but didn't check out, you can promote a 10% discount to them on social media if they complete their purchase.
These subtle but powerful marketing tools are helping convert more customers and increase subscriber lists for thousands of companies around the world. As technology advances, there will likely be more sophisticated ways to boost your lead lists, but for now, social media is one of the most popular places for customers, and there are plenty of excellent ways to beef up your leads.
5. Use Twitter chats.
Twitter chats are curated conversations on Twitter brands can host about a specific topic. Customers can reply using a predetermined hashtag to participate in the conversation. This is a great way to build engagement with your audience and incentivize them to join your email list. Twitter chats allow customers to give you feedback on whatever you choose and allow them to feel like their ideas are being heard.
Twitter chats are a great way to show your customers you value their input and will take the time to interact. If you take the time to listen to them, they will be more open to continuing the interaction by joining an email list. It shows that you're interested in their thoughts and opinions, not just selling them products.
6. Create tutorials on YouTube.
Today's digital consumers are more suspicious of internet scams than they were in the past, and to get them to give up their email address, you have to earn their trust. Posting tutorials on YouTube is an easy, cost-effective way to build this trust.
YouTube gives you an opportunity to showcase your professional skills without speaking directly to every potential customer. It's a simple way to prove your authority on a subject. That authority could earn you the trust you need to convince viewers to give you their precious data and could be an effective driver of sales.