Marketing

There is nothing more frustrating than going to run a Facebook ad and seeing it disapproved or banned completely.

Even worse is when Facebook deactivates your ads account as a whole.

People experience this with their business and personal accounts all the time.

It can be devastating, especially if you can't get back online. Still, if your account has been banned from running ads, it may not be the end of the world.

New or Reinstated

The First step you will need to take is to figure out what's going on and with which account.

If your Facebook business account has been disabled, you may simply be able to create a new one and try to be careful in the future.

If your personal Facebook account has been disabled, however, there may be something going that is much more serious.

Creating a new personal Facebook account for ads will probably not be possible since Facebook is usually very meticulous about tracing duplicates.

First Things First, Visit The Ads Manager

Before you do anything, you will want to visit your main marketing control center on Facebook, the Facebook Ads manager for business.

Once you're in the Facebook Ads Manager, you should see a yellow bar at the top that indicates your account is no longer active.

This box should contain a link that you can click.

Once you click, it should guide you through a series of instructions and questions that you guide you through the process of reinstating your account.

Alternatively, you can also go all the way up to the support center, which may be hard to spot at first. It should appear in the top-right corner at a "?" logo.

A scroll-down menu will pop out. Navigate to the bottom of the screen where it says you need "more help" and contact customer support.

Check Your Email

If for some reason you're not seeing this yellow bar and the Facebook ads manager isn't working for you, check your email.

Check both your spam and your inbox folders to see if Facebook contacted you there.

This email, too, should contain a link guiding you through the process.

Go Directly To The Source

If neither of the above options are working for you, you can still appeal directly to Facebook, depending on the nature of your concern.

If your Facebook ads account was simply restricted, for example, because it was flagged for suspicious activity, you can visit this link and follow the steps there to contact Facebook directly. Meanwhile, if your account was disabled completely, you can contact them here.

There is a real possibility that Facebook may have been wrong, or we simply made a simple mistake that Facebook may understand.

Simply explain your situation politely and diplomatically, and with as much information and detail as possible.

If you word your appeal right, you may get your ads account back in business.

Prevention is The Best Medicine

Having your Facebook ads account disabled for any reason can be disastrous, and a downright business nightmare.

It may not be the end of the world, but if you can avoid this ordeal, do so at all costs.

Prevention is usually key, and you should consider the following points to stay in business and on top of your Facebook ads game:

-Familiarize yourself with all of Facebook's guidelines and Ad policies, any violations could get you cut off the platform completely, and you don't want that! -Have a legal expert draft your privacy policy, refund policy, terms & conditions, and custom disclaimers. They are required, well-written ones are a plus -Landing pages, in most cases should include your business name and contact information -Optimize user experiences. Don't advertise sites full of pop-ups, broken links, or poorly structured text that provides them with a poor experience -Don't publish ads that are spammy, clickbaitish, or even borderline offensive -Always make sure all info is 100% accurate and true in all your content -Once your account is reinstated (if disabled), try to use a different payment method from the old one in order to avoid an accidental penalty from Facebook, and having to go through this again.

It takes a while to understand that social media sites are developed for more than just entertainment and de-escalation of boredom.

You can make money through social media without selling anything.

These platforms are, believe it or not, perfectly designed to be used as money-making machines.

It may take you a little time and a lot of effort to get recognized by other social media users.

You'll need to build an image and audience on social media.

You'll need to build an audience and engage in an effective social media content strategy.

Over time, as your audience grows and you accumulate more and followers a number of new income opportunities may open up to you, and you'll never have to create a store or start your own business if you don't want to.

Once you have a substantial audience, here are some ways you can make money with your popular social media account:

1: Brand Promotion:

Some of the most effective marketing is done through ads and promotions online, but not all of it is pay per click advertising.

Many companies will turn to famous and popular celebrities to promote or endorse their products.

If you become a social media influencer companies may reach out to you for brand promotion deals.

Companies know this is a great way, especially to reach a targeted audience.

Example: Look at Tecno Mobile who launched a Tik Tok campaign to reach out to teen users, which comprise about 90% of the website's audience.

2: Shout-outs:

Shout-outs, especially among young people and millennials, are becoming one of the most common social media promotion tactics.

You find someone who is a highly influential social media personality with an audience that fits your target market and you get them to give a shout-out to their audience about your page or business.

Not only can you gain new customers this way, but also followers and viewers for your other pages online.

If you become influential enough on social media, other influencers and companies may reach out to you for a paid shout-out.

3: Selling Arts And Crafts On Social Media:

Millions, maybe even billions of social media users all over the world have a love for the arts.

Who doesn't love seeing the creativity of another person in action through arts, crafts, and other special talents.

Showing your creativity and talents in action and putting them on display is a great way to build a solid social media following if you do it right. In addition to getting the influence though, it also opens up the door to money-making opportunities.

Many artists are already selling on Instagram, and Facebook is starting to break into E-Commerce as well.

If you have talents and hobbies you're good at and passionate about, you may be able to turn it into a social media business.

Keeping Followers Engaged With Content

Building a following and keeping a following on social media follow somewhat similar strategies, in they evolve the constant creation of content.

You need content that is original, unique, and will keep relevant users engaged, and it has to be constant.

It’s often a lot easier to sell to your current customers than to get a new customer.

They already like and trust you and know your product/service works.

Tap into that opportunity by looking at what else you can sell to your customers that compliments what they bought previously.

For example, if you have a resume writing service, you could go out to recent customers and also offer an additional service where you submit their resume to X amount of job ads and write a customized cover letter for each ad, and also submit their resume to several recruitment agencies.

One of our followers once had a tech business where he sold server management services, and he was asking me how to increase sales.

After pointing out how it’s often much easier to sell to existing customers than get new ones, I asked him what kind of stuff or things his current customers seem to want or ask him for.

As I suspected, they were often asking for things like websites, ranking help, etc. among other things.

But to my surprise, he wasn’t offering any of these services (or even taking a cut from others he referred them out to).

Months later I heard from him that he finally put my advice into action and said that he instantly saw a big boost in sales, and then months after that I heard that he increased his sales to something around 66% more with just adding a couple other offers that he’d approach existing customers on.

He admitted that he wasn’t really even trying hard, and that if he gave it some more thought, he likely could’ve more than doubled his existing sales.

That’s the power of selling to your existing customers with relevant offers that they likely already need!

Since your customers are going to be buying related products and services anyway, you might as well have them buy it from you!

And even if you can’t offer the product or service directly yourself, you can easily reach out to those who can supply them and work out a commission deal for referrals.

Reselling to your current customers is often a lot easier and less costly that trying to obtain a new customer.

So try reaching out to your current and past clients with a complimentary offer to what they’ve bought in the past.

How can you price your product in a way that psychologically impacts your customer into believing they’re getting a great deal?

When people see the difference, between your normal price and your sales price, it influences their decision to purchase.

By having a “normal” price listed it creates the impression that the deal they are getting is awesome.

They’re getting all this value at a price that is way less than “normal”.

People love to believe they are getting a bargain and by listing both your normal and sale price side by side, it highlights the value they’re getting for their money.

For example, when you list your pricing, write it as, "Normally $197 -- Only $97 Today!"

You can also come up with reasons to have such discounts listed.

These reasons can be mentioned next to the discounted price as well.

These could be things like a holiday special, inventory closeout, end of year special pricing, manager’s special, etc..

Any reason works and makes it seem like a legitimate deal that customers have to take advantage of.

Remember, people love a bargain.

So create the perception of a great deal by listing your “normal” price next to your sales price (eg, "Normally $197 -- Only $97 Today!").

Also consider names for special deals just to have a reason for that deal (like a holiday discount or manager’s special).

What is a Ranking in SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is meant for the betterment of web pages to help search engines rank them accordingly.

In SEO, ranking indicates the position of a website’s page on what's called the search engine results pages (SERPs).

According to Google, the ranking of a website is vital because it helps in showing the relevant search results.

It is also essential for the organization of large scale data present on the web and making the information reachable and valuable to people all around the world.

The ranking also makes it easier for Google to catalog the pages based on the optimization and quality of the pages. The five most important factors in ranking of a website are:

1. Secure Website

The right URL is secure and easily accessible.

A secure and accessible URL is probably the most important ranking factor of any website.

Google’s bots should be able to access and crawl URLs for the information they need.

In other words, websites that have URLs that Google can visit and review easily, are more likely to rank higher on the SERPs.

To improve the ranking of your website by making it secure, you need to consider the following: • A well-developed website through a standard website builder. • Robots.txt file that is used by Google to determine where it can and cannot view the website information. • A thorough sitemap which gives the details of all of your pages.

2. Page Speed

Page speed is one of the primary SEO ranking factors for many years.

Websites that have rapid-loading webpages give an excellent experience to the users.

Faster websites are highly preferred by search engines in any ranking system.

Since 2018, Google has taken into account the page speed on mobile devices as well as PCs.

Therefore, website developers should consider smart devices and their loading speeds as well.

3. Mobile Responsiveness

Smartphones and other smart devices have become ubiquitous in the last decade.

The majority of users on the web use mobile devices to browse websites.

Hence, the mobile-friendliness of a website is a major ranking factor today.

It has impacted the SERPs a lot because now, only mobile responsive websites are ranked on the first few pages of Google and other search engines.

Google implements a mobile-first index, which means that the results of the searched keywords are drawn from the mobile-optimized pages.

Your website must be mobile responsive if you have a desire to see it ranked high on Google.

Some important factors included in website friendliness are: • A responsive site that can fit and resize according to the device. • Fonts are large enough to be readable on small screens. • Different menus and pages can be accessed and navigated easily. • Ads are placed appropriately and do not hide the content.

4. Content-Length

Some SEO experts do not consider the content length to be an important factor in the ranking of pages.

However, it can be observed from the general ranking on Google that websites that have unique, engaging, relevant, and an appropriate word count are ranked higher than the others.

There is no hard and fast rule on the content length.

A long piece of writing is appreciated in SEO ranking because it takes time and energy to create a unique and engaging long content.

However, there must be a balance in length.

An excessively long and uninteresting piece of writing content will not attract many people to your website, which will adversely impact rankings.

Recent trends in Google rankings have shown that content length should never be ignored, and long-form content is performing better at the top of the SERPs.

As a general rule, 1,000 words or more is optimal for most general content.

5. Domain Age and Authority

Data about the top-ranked websites on Google suggests that the old websites are ranked higher than the new websites.

The main reason for this is that the old site is usually optimized over a period of a few years.

In some cases, the domain name also accounts for the ranking of a website.

Some researches show that domains that match to each other and that are relevant, useful, and highly-optimized enjoy a significant ranking boost.

However, your URL must reflect the nature of your business.

Authority is also another factor in SEO ranking. It consists of SEO signals like inbound links, social media impressions, and page authority.

All of this requires a great deal of research, time, and experience, but the process can be made simple by automating it all through advanced programs.

It would not be wrong to say that people’s interest in blogging has hit the highest point in recent years.

Some people believe that blogs are dying, but more accurate they're evolving.

Make no mistake, blogs are here to stay, but they're more competitive than ever.

With social media, freelancing, and SEO becoming widely used around the world, the trend of blogging has dramatically increased in recent times.

Millions of blogs are being written on a daily basis, but there are some basic tips and techniques which should be implemented in every excellent and engaging blog post you write.

Captivating Title and Headline

Many writers tend to ignore the fact that a good blog post is always about just one idea.

There is no need to add numerous ideas and topics in a single blog post because the primary purpose of a post is to discuss and elaborate on one idea.

A good title is the one that captures the readers’ attention at the very first glance and briefly describes the content of the post.

It should be based on the pattern of an engaging magazine headline or a newsflash that attracts the user and forces them to click the link.

You should take time in crafting a fantastic headline for your post because it will be the first item that any readers see, and if it is not catchy enough for the user, you may lose a potential reader.

An Engaging Opening Paragraph

The importance of the first impression of a user cannot be understated.

A large amount of data is available on the web that will support this.

With all the content out there, it has become much more challenging to hold readers' attention.

No one's going to read for an extended period of time, unless the content is unique and engaging.

An opening paragraph of a blog post is crucial to keep your reader interested in your writing.

Blog posts should always start with something interesting like an amazing quote, a thought-provoking question, or a bold statement.

Targeted Audience

A good blog post is the one which targets a specific audience, depending on the topic and relevance of the post. In order to write a good post, you should know who your audience is and what they are searching for.

Targeting an audience is vital to make sure your content reaches the right kind of readers who are interested in the category on which the post is written.

A post that's targeted is more effective in attracting more traffic to your blog as well as keeping the readers glued.

Many blogs become successful by smartly guessing the demands and interest of their audience; however, it should be done in a professional way.

Consider using different tools available on the internet to determine the requests your readers might make. Some of these tools might include Twitter Advanced Search, Keyword Tools. SEMrush, and many others.

Unique and Interesting Content

Excellent blog posts not only manage to capture the reader's attention through engaging headlines and opening sentences but also maintain interest throughout the post.

The content of any blog post should be exciting and unique.

Make sure the reader isn't bored and reads the the entirety of your content. Any point or opinion discussed in the post should be supported by some evidence or logic to present your thoughts clearly to the readers.

High authority, trustworthy links are great when possible.

Clear, comprehensive, and unambiguous writing always attracts the readers and keeps them involved.

Using Subheadings And Smaller Paragraphs

A well-presentable blog post is essential to make it easily readable for the users.

Majority of the people skim through a blog post before deciding to read it, so it is important to format the blog posts properly. It can be done by dividing a post into several headings and subheadings with small paragraphs to clearly indicate the topic of each section.

Using bullet points and numbering can be done to make it easy on the reader’s eyes and keep them engaged throughout the article.

Design, style, and format of the blog should be selected appropriately according to the type of blog.

Some the tips in using bullet points are:

• Treat the bullets as small headings to write concise and clear points. • The bullets should be symmetrically formatted. • Avoid excessive bullet points

Images

Visual content is the tried and tested method of immediately capturing the user’s attention.

Captivating pictures can boost the traffic of your blog quickly and easily.

You should take or design your own unique images for the blog.

If you can't find or design original images yourself, there are numerous online free resources available to get the photos for your content.

Consider programs like Canva, websites like Pexels, Morguefile, and Pixabay for open-sourced, copyright free photos.

SEO Optimization

SEO is an essential part of any kind of online content, including blogs.

Organic searches are a huge part of the traffic blogs will see.

Your content must follow the SEO best practices and the media used in your website is SEO optimized for higher ranking on the search engine result pages.

Some of the tips of optimizing a blog post are:

• Write an appropriate meta title • The meta description should be added to clearly describe the post • Focus keywords should be used • Images and video should be optimized. • Using internal links for optimization.

Any special promotions can help you drive sales, especially those sitting on the fence as to whether or not to buy from you.

However, offering seasonal or holiday themed promotions can help even more, as prospects not only immediately understand that it’s a limited time deal for a good reason, but you’ll also hit them up during a peak buying period.

For example, the vast majority of people are probably already buying lots of stuff over Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, etc., so you can ride that wave while they already have their credit cards out, while also standing out amongst the crowd of competitors by having something that they perceive as a special deal.

Similar to other promotions, it’s often best to have these be very limited time deals (even if you bring them back multiple times) so prospects don’t have the opportunity to sit on the fence too long.

Three or so days is often the perfect amount of time to offer a special promotional deal, as long as you give them many reminders along the way.

For instance, if you have an email list and are offering a three day special promotional offer, we recommend mailing once on day 1, twice on day 2, and three times on day 3.

Using this method will get you a lot of sales on that last day, especially during the last hours when they know there’s no time left!

One observation that we’ve had over the years, which many business owners seem to ignore or be unaware of, is that even “after the holiday” sales can be huge, especially for big holidays when people are often still at home, bored, and looking to buy or do something.

We’ve run several webinars and special deals right after Christmas when most marketers in our niche were afraid to schedule anything then, yet that period of time would often get some of the highest amount of sales and webinar attendance.

Don’t assume that everyone is out visiting with friends and family. Some (okay … maybe all???) are looking for a break or just aren’t traveling then, so it can be the perfect time to run a special offer or schedule a special event!

During holidays, different seasons, or any other special time of the year, it’s a good idea to create themed promotions with special offers to not only drive extra sales, but to also stand out from the rest of the competition during high sales periods.

Businesses of any kind can be quite challenging.

There is a lot of saturation and variation in different industrial sectors.

It all requires careful research and cautiously formulated strategies.

To ensure the success of your business, it is necessary to make your brand stand out from competitors through effective promotion strategies.

Here are the crucial steps in marketing your new business:

Conduct market research

Market research is a crucial component in establishing a marketing strategy for a new business.

It includes collecting data about the market in which you are going to establish your business.

The data is thoroughly analyzed to determine the needs and requirements of potential customers, prime locations for the business, and the estimation of the budget and pricing of the products and services.

Moreover, market research can also include sales predictions, monitoring latest market trends, and studying the business models of your competition to make sure you adopt the good strategies and discard the bad practices.

Market research can also include conducting surveys, focus groups, competitive analysis, and other valuable research tools.

Profile your target markets

It is inefficient to target a general audience to promote your products or services.

Trying to shoot in the dark this way will consume tons of energy, time, and money.

Instead, you should focus on a particular segment of society that you know would be interested in your business.

For example, expensive and luxurious items target the upper class, and so the promotion should be executed in a grandiose way.

Segmentation of the audience can be narrowed by numerous factors: • Location • Age, gender, income, profession, and qualification • General lifestyle of the customers like social class and values.

Promote your unique selling proposition (USP)

The markets have become heavily saturated in different parts of the world with businesses of various kinds.

However, every company usually has a vision and an aim behind it, which distinguishes it from its competition.

A business must identify its unique selling proposition (USP) and promote it heavily among its expected customers to make sure they buy the products from you and not from your competitors.

USP is the reflection of your business uniqueness, knowledge, and special skills.

USP of a business can be developed by keeping in mind the following things: • What is the aim of your business? • What is the unique thing about your products or services? • Why should the customers come to you and not to similar businesses like yours? • How are your products or services going to benefit the customers?

Develop your business brand

Every business, whether large-scale or small-scale, must have a brand that consists of an attractive logo, stylish design and colors, and a unique tagline that reflects your business and aim.

A smartly designed brand will connect your customers immediately.

Select Marketing Platforms

There are many avenues in which you can promote your business.

There is a myriad of options available for business marketing like business websites, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, blogging, flyers, posters, online giveaways, paid media advertisements, and, of course, word of mouth.

Most of these options should be utilized by all new businesses for successful marketing in different sectors of society to expand the customer base.

Set Objectives

Every marketing plan must have a goal in mind.

These goals should be specific, measurable, appropriate, and achievable within a time frame.

A well-thought budget should be allocated to the marketing team of your business so they can utilize the resources available to them appropriately.

While setting the marketing budget, you should keep in mind that marketing is the backbone of your business and so the budget must encompass the following things:

• Development of the business website and its maintenance. • Implementation of SEO strategies • Branding which includes logo and flyer designs • Advertisement printing • Salary for the marketing team.

Establish a loyal customer base

Returning customers are one of the essential parts of any business.

If your customers are satisfied with your products and services, they will keep returning to your business and generate good word of mouth.

It is important to get feedback from your customers and keep improving and maintaining the quality of your business to encourage loyalty among the customers.

Monitor and review

Once you have started a good marketing campaign for your business, it is important to monitor the review of the marketing activities after a certain period of time to find out if your strategies are working or not.

Usually, businesses should review the marketing plan every three months.

Once your company has established its roots in the industry, you can create a new plan or review the old one whenever a new product or service is launched.

The review process includes assessing the sales, general perception about your business, and determining which marketing tool is working the best for your business.

Online Marketing Made Easy

If you follow these steps, you can market your business successfully. However, people with no experience in marketing and business might find some of these strategies to be overwhelming.

Business to marketing seems like a foreign language to many people who are trying it for the first time.

The consumer markets seems so much plainer and easier, after all, we're dealing with every day people.

With businesses we feel we are dealing with some mysterious entity or some divine VIP, a thing whose persona is foreign to everything we knew in the every day human consciousness.

The reality that most people miss, and it's a well-kept secret, businesses are people.

They are decision makers, executives, highly paid company officers, and even midgrade managers.

At the end of the day though, they are people, selling to other businesses is no different than selling to people, except that you have to consider the kind of person you're selling to.

Much of this involves trying to get into a person's head.

What does a business owner or manager need and/or want?

What things will improve their lives, and more importantly, the operations of their business?

Answering these questions is the first key to selling to other businesses.

1: Identify Your VIP

The first step in creating a strong pitch for your product and service is considering your VIP, there may be more than one to consider depending on how the decisions are made.

You have to know who you're selling to and then consider how your business can benefit them personally.

As we discussed, you're dealing with real people, and they taking their own needs and desires into consideration as well as their roles in serving the greater needs of the company. Is your contact a buyer, a manger, or a business owner?

Depending on who you're speaking to, you'll want to come with ideas and features about what you have to offer and how it makes their lives easy as well benefiting their employer.

2: Don't Just Sell, Give Them Something They Can Use

Whoever your VIP may be, you can expect that someone has found them too, and they probably get multiple pitches a day for what you have to offer.

A simple letter with a sales pitch is no longer enough to draw people in anymore.

Because of this, you want to attach your sales pitch to something they can use.

Many companies do this by offering white papers. White papers may be written as guides on important industry topics and trends, and may even highlight problems the industry is facing.

This can be accompanied by a pitch explaining how you offer a solution.

Either way the white papers are free and useful, so there's no harm in reading.

Writing effective white papers isn't easy, but it can be done.

3: Start With Value Over Price

When you're making a pitch to any business, you may find yourselves in the middle of a bidding war.

Too many entrepreneurs focus in only on their prices as a way to put their best foot forward.

While pricing certainly is important, it's far more vital to highlight the value your product has to offer.

What can your product do that others can't. Can it save the company time or money even while requiring an investment?

Can it make life easier for managers or help improve employee morale and productivity?

When you're making your bid don't advertise that you are cheap. If anything this will raise red flags if it's all you have to offer.

4: Highlight The Business Benefits

Whether it's in consumer to consumer or business to business marketing, even professionals have made this terrible mistake in copy-writing.

Never just tell someone about the features of what you have to offer.

Features are boring and no one wants to hear you list them all day long.

They want to know how what you have to offer is going to solve a common problem.

Just don't tell them “My computers have a lot of RAM” but instead consider, “Are you tired of losing valuable company time and money waiting for your computers to load?

With our CPUs high RAM capability your upload, download, and processing speeds will be through the roof.

You'll save time, money, and your business will be moving at lightning speed when processing your data!”

Benefits are everything. Nobody wants to know what you can do, everyone wants to know what you can do “For me”

5: Make it Easy To Act

Your call to action (CTA) is the grand finale of any pitch you write. It needs be dazzling and out of the park, but more importantly, it needs to be easy to act upon.

Links in emails should be large, thought not obnoxious, and easy to see and click on, and MUST NOT BE BROKEN OR INACCURATE.

Contact info should be prominent, accurate, and very visible.

Like it or not, nobody likes a hassle. If your final pitch is hard to act on, even a little, or your lead finds it hard to get in touch you may lose your sale to someone else out of sheer convenience.

6: Gather Leads This probably should have been the first step, but you need to gather solid prospective leads to sell to.

It means nothing if you have the greatest product in the world and killer sales pitch to back it up, and no relevant people to sell it to.

One way to show value and highlight the great price you’re offering your customers is to point out when you are giving a discount or savings, as this lets customers know you’re giving them a great deal and lots of value.

A discount also has a psychological effect - we feel we are getting a better deal and are more likely to buy.

Seeing that an item is discounted not only is an incentive to buy it now, it can also encourage new users to buy that might otherwise have not considered it.

For example, when listing your price, you might write: "$97 --- 50% Off Today!"

This makes people feel they are getting a great deal, helps them justify the purchase to themselves and is more likely to push them over the line.

If you have several similar offers that are slightly better or more/less expensive than the other, instead of just listing off the benefits of each one next to their price, you can also not only list off the savings, but say “Good Deal,” “Better Deal,” and “Best Deal” next to each one (or “Most Savings” or something similar).

Never assume that people will just do the math in their head and know which one is the best deal.

Think about how you can apply this to your business.

Can you put a savings amount next to a price point (eg, “$97 --- 50% Off Today!)?

This makes customers feel they are getting a great deal and can encourage customers to buy that may not have bought before.

According to a survey conducted in the United States a stunning 90% of businesses were active in some way on social media in 2019.

Facebook alone, has close to 1 billion users, equal to the total population of India, all over the globe.

The world has progressed to the point where everyone wants everything right at their fingertips.

They want what they want constantly and they want what they want NOW.

That is the number one rule of social media. If it's used effectively the rewards are great. You want a social media page that

• Is active • Has a large, engaged, and growing following • Speaks to a large, relevant audience that translates into business conversions.

Using social media in a way that accomplishes these things can be tricky, but it also can be done.

Consider some of the following guidelines:

1: Headlines Matter:

You may have heard this famous proverb “don’t judge a book by its cover” but let's be honest with ourselves.

We are visual creatures who often act on the first thing we see, and authors seem to agree with marketing experts that the cover very much matters.

Creating effective social media headlines takes some practice. Headlines should be catchy, attention-grabbing, and the appropriate length depending on your platform.

2: Compelling Visuals:

What we see is more important online than what we hear or read.

Visuals play a vital role in all social media campaigns.

The use of compelling pictures and video material brings more value and attention to your posts, especially when compared to plain text.

Visual posts are becoming more important on every form of social media, but many platforms like Pinterst, Snapchat, and instagram rely on visuals entirely, and their popularity continues to soar.

3: Adapt According To Your Platform

Whether you're working with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social media site, each platform is going to come with a set of features.

Most sites allow you yo post links, videos, and images along with your engaging text posts. Each platform is different, however.

Instagram for instance offers various filters and focuses primarily on posts related to graphics, photos, and other visual posts.

The nature of Instagram makes it ideal for sharing art. Twitter on the other hand, while it allows some of these features, is better for shorter blurbs and other text-based posts.

Character limits require to you get your information out there short and quick, and as a far more active program you have to post CONSTANTLY to keep up with your following and your competition.

Whatever platform you're using, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the individual social media site and adapt accordingly.

3: Trending and Timely:

Twitter perhaps began this concept, but Facebook and other platforms are adopting the concept of trends and hashtags as well.

It's important to follow what's going with these trends, as well as what people are talking about on social media in general.

Your posts must be timely, and fall in sync with current trends to remain engaging and capture the attention of your audience. Give them content that's relevant.

You'll have to experiment with your content strategy as far as when to post.

Some audiences and topics trend at different times of day depending on the behaviors of their audience.

What are their work schedules and daily routines?

Try to pinpoint the times that they're most on and post accordingly.

This may require some trial and error at first, but as you tweak your posting schedule you'll want to adjust and post mostly during the times that get the most engagement (likes, clicks, comments, shares etc)

Of course most of us aren't available to post on social media 24/7, fortunately you may not have to.

Many features like Facebook's auto-scheduling program can make your life much easier as they allow you to schedule your posts in advance.

4: Cast A Net Of Posts:

Using a net can catch more fish for you than using a fishing rod. Its wider and has more reach.

The same concept can in some ways be applied to social media.

The algorithms of your visibility very much depend on the activity of your page.

The more you post the more likely you are to be seen.

One or two posts a day is good, but at some point it may not be enough.

You want relevant content your audience will appreciate, so don't just spam post, but have your content planned in mass and in advanced.

Five or more posts a day may be ideal to start, but you can experiment with the number of posts you plan as you measure engagement.

4: Interact With Users:

Interaction with your users is an important, but neglected step in social media management and influence.

First, many pages like Facebook measure your pages response times and rates and will sometimes post them publicly.

You want to be as responsive and interactive as possible in your profiles inbox system, and even on your posts.

Users are more likely to engage if they feel connected with your brand on a personal level.

Answer questions, respond to criticism, and above all, be friendly and polite.

Let your users know there's real people behind your page.

5: Keep The Content Coming

One of the biggest struggles for many businesses and users in social media is consistency.

Creating content is more tedious than you would think, but it has to be done all the time.

New content every day, fresh and original, is one of the biggest keys to success in social media.

Not everyone has time for content posting and creation, especially in a way that keeps up with the demands.

With content constantly rolling out, you need to keep your pages busy.

With the passage of time, consumers have become highly conscious of the marketing strategies being used by businesses all over.

Most consumers are able to differentiate between an authentic business and one that is exaggerated and hyped through artificial marketing.

As a result, people tend to spend their hard-earned earnings on very particular products and brands.

In such a highly competitive business environment, businesses face the difficulty of increasing their sales, or even worse, just to maintain a steady sales income.

As a result, the capital of such companies starts dwindling within a few years, and it can lead to the catastrophic failure of their business model.

If you want to keep your head above those choppy waters, you need to keep in mind the following five marketing tips.

These tips should be adopted by all businesses to drastically improve their sales:

1. Identify The Market And The Problems.

Not enough can be said of the great importance in choosing an appropriate market for the kind of business you run.

After you've established your business, it's important to find out the problems your desired customers are facing in that particular market.

Then you need to analyze those market problems in detail.

Then you need to figure out exactly how your business solves that problem and sell that solution.

Your business should emphasize developing modern, durable, and unique solutions to customers’ issues.

It should go without saying that the products and the services offered by your business must possess the highest of quality.

However, offering premium quality is not enough. It absolutely must stand out from the crowd to really make the customer fall in love with your business.

2. Develop A Unique Selling Proposition

Your business must have some unique selling proposition (USP) to make it stand out from your competition.

If you keep offering the same services and products as your competitors in the market, your business will have fewer chances of surviving in the fierce business conditions.

You should research your competitive businesses and offer more advantages to your customers to keep them hooked to your company’s services.

Moreover, with the launch of different businesses on a daily basis, it has become difficult to establish a loyal customer base.

A steady and continuous form of communication with your customers is important to keep your business and new products fresh in their minds.

You should take feedback from your customers and adapt your workings and services according to their requirements.

3. Effective Social Media Marketing

As often stated in all marketing strategies, social media has become a an integral part of marketing for any kind of business.

It is now considered to be the best tool of advertisement for companies because you can target specific markets, areas, and people via an active social media marketing campaign.

Moreover, you can get better advertising for a fraction of the cost compared to other marketing techniques and advertising platforms.

Through social media platforms, you can form good relations with your potential and existing customers and keep them updated about your business and any new products.

Social media can also be used to answer any queries of your customers quickly and get good reviews from your customers.

Authentic and live comments from other customers will encourage the audience of your social media pages to avail your products or services, leading to drastic improvement in sales.

Other advantages of social media include:

• It provides various channels for your business to sell your products. Many social media pages now provide you with the option of selling directly from your Facebook page to facilitate your social media consumers and increase sales. • It is extremely cost-efficient to run a social media page and keep customers engaged and updated. • Customer retention is improved via social media by keeping customers engaged and informed

4. Select An Appropriate Price

Selecting the right price for a product or a service can more difficult than expected for many.

However, it is necessary to remember that the price you set should be affordable by your targeted customers. Market and audience research (https://marketingland.com/research-audience-90118) and targeting play a huge role in this case.

You can research your competitors (https://www.intechnic.com/blog/top-ten-tools-to-research-your-competition-on-the-web/) and analyze the reasons behind the prices set by them.

Try to set the price with minimum profits during the first few months of the business until it has found its footing in the Market.

After you have established a loyal customer base, you can revise the charges appropriately according to market conditions.

5. Customer Retention

Targeting new customers should not be the only focus of the companies as retaining an old customer is also important to establish a loyal customer base and increase the sales quickly.

There are many ways to target customer retention, for instance by connecting with your customers on social media or through blogging and email up to dates to keep them informed on updates and special offers.

Many companies also retain customers by creating rewards programs that provide your most loyal customers with exclusive deals, and rewards them with special offers and discounts for shopping at your store.

It’s time to check out the competition!!

In school it may have been called cheating, but in the business world it’s just good old-fashioned market research!

Find out where your competitors are advertising, spy on their sales funnels, and see how you can replicate any of their good ideas that appear to be working well.

There are many online tools to find out what ads and keywords your competitors are using.

There’s also a couple of basic ways to see what your competitors are up to - follow them on social media and subscribe to their blogs and newsletters.

If they have smaller priced items, you may choose to purchase one of their items to see what their purchase process is like, whether they offer upsells, what those are and what their follow up process is to a sale.

See what they are doing really well and look for how you can replicate it or adapt it to your business.

For example, if you sign up to a competitor’s newsletter, you can see how they nurture a lead and turn it onto a sale. Is there anything you see in this process that is working well that you can adopt for your business?

Or you may purchase a small item from them and find they are offering a great upsell - is that something you could do?

A simple trick you can do to spy on other offers is to check ads on other sites or on social media like Facebook and just see how many views, comments, likes, etc. they’re getting.

If there’s a ton of comments, for instance, it’s likely something you want to look at and see what you could replicate or do better. You don’t have to always start from scratch or re-invent the wheel.

In fact, several of our businesses we originally got the idea from after seeing other ads with lots of views and comments on them, and then checking out exactly what they sold, what their upsells were, where else they advertised, etc..

And then we’d research to try to find out if there were other similar offers and what they looked like.

Often times we would find ways of offering a better front-end product (they wouldn’t even have to be the same type – just something in the same niche or appealing to the same crowds), more or better upsells, better ad copy, different ad sources, etc..

Sure, we’ve also started new offerings not based on anything else other than a random idea we had, but those always seemed to be more risky and more likely to fail from the start.

Starting off with a model that seems to at least be working in one way or another is always a good idea!

That’s not to say that you have to copy everything exactly as is, but by spying on what others are successfully doing and seeing what you can learn or mimic from them, you set yourself up to succeed far more easily.

So find out where and how your competitors are advertising and what their sales funnels are.

Then look at what they are doing well and see how you can replicate this for your business.

There’s many strategies to increase conversions, but have you tried this one?

Try ending your prices with a 7, .95, 5 or .95. Instead of charging $10, for instance, consider charging $9.97.

Even though it’s only a few cents less, people seem to think that it sounds cheaper.

Even on high priced items the same tricks can work.

For instance, you’ve probably never seen a car advertised for $30,000.

Instead, you’ll see it advertised for something like $29,995.

Amazingly enough, on that last example, some people will walk away thinking that the car is $29,000 in their head (even though they’re smart enough to know that it’s obviously $30,000).

In the past many marketers have used 9 or .99 to end the numbers in, but it seems that there’s been a growing trend lately that 7, .97, 5, or .95 seem to stand out even more and appear even less expensive.

Crazy stuff, but it can definitely work. And it’s doubtful that you’ll miss those few cents after increasing your conversions.

So, consider adjusting your price points to end in 7, .97, 5, or .95 to make your prices seem cheaper and see how it helps increase conversions.

If you haven't tried Facebook ads already and you know a lot of people who have, you probably don't want to.

They're uncharted waters, and many before you have failed.

At least once or twice, sometimes even from business professionals, you've probably heard plain and simple that Facebook ads don't work.

Everyone who tries just loses their money with minimal results.

First, let's dispel that myth.

Not everyone fails on Facebook marketing.

It is a highly effective platform, but only if you succeed in utilizing it's tools properly.

1. They Don't Test Their Audiences

Audience testing is going to be the very first step you use to build on your Facebook ad campaign success.

The target audience you choose through Facebook will vary based on your industry and business type, and who you're trying to reach with your product.

Facebook provides many factors to consider when selecting an audience for your first ad:

-Demographics-Based on demographic factors like age, gender, job title, level of education, and more. -Interests-Audiences hobbies, interests, and likes -Behaviors-Behavior patterns typically followed like purchases, website visits, and using a certain device

When you first begin figuring out your audience type it will be anything but easy.

It may involve some guesswork and gouging your competitors.

Audience testing is the crucial element for long-term success in targeting.

How to Test Your Audience

To test your audience, you'll need to create several separate ad sets.

In each one choose your targeting factors.

For the best gauge of success, create at least 8 to 10 different sets, and monitor each one's performance using your ads manager.

Over time as you monitor the performance of each ad, look and see which ones are performing best, based on your goals.

Are your target audiences visiting your page, engaging in your posts, or finally making purchases?

Keep the audiences that perform best.

2. They Don't Utilize Lookalikes and Customs

As some of your ads begin to perform, entering the ads manager will reveal that you can actually create custom and lookalike audiences.

To do this, simply visit the audiences tab in your Facebook ads manager.

From there, you can select from custom or lookalike audiences.

Custom audiences are more or less "warm audiences" who have already performed some action on your page in a set period of time.

You can choose to market your ad to people based on many factors, including those who have engaged in your posts, visited your website, or watched a certain length of your videos.

This is a great way to put your ad in front of people who are already familiar with your brand.

A lookalike audience varies from a custom audience in that it is essentially a "smart" audience more or less cloned from a custom audience.

Your custom audience requires 100 members or more, before you can create a lookalike audience.

Creating a lookalike essentially spawns an audience of people who share similar interests, behaviors, and demographics with your custom audience.

In this sense, once you've established a heartbeat for your ads campaigns and desired audience, it becomes that much easier to find people just like them.

That means people just as likely to become loyal customers.

3. The Pixel Isn't Working Properly

Facebook Pixel is a tool you can use to track audiences who visit your webpage and then transmit that info to Facebook, allowing them to update your advertising algorithms.

Go to your Pixels tab in Events Manager, click Create a Pixel, name your pixel, enter your website url to find easy set up optins and make your choice.

Then simply copy and paste the code provided by Facebook into your website.

Once you're done, Facebook ads will track, optimize, and constantly work to improve your ad performance.

Pixels will work to track actions taken on your website outside of the Facebook page, like visits and clicks, sign-ups, and purchases.

If you haven't already synced up your website, it's an absolute must. If you are already using Facebook pixels, there's always a possibility the code may not be working correctly.

If you've noticed your ads haven't improved over time, or are simply not performing at all, it may be time to troubleshoot your Pixel.

What if All of This Was Easy?

Facebook ads CAN work and DO work, but you have to utilize all of the tools that Facebook has to offer, and you have to manage them effectively.

Doing this is no easy task, but you don't have to be a marketing expert to achieve some level of success, but it certainly helps.

Fortunately, there is plenty of help for the rest of us who are less than master's in the art of the Facebook ad. Programs like Automated Ads streamline the management of mulitple ad sets and vastly improves your chance of success without losing your shirt.

A membership program is where your customers sign up, either for free or for a fee, to be part of a community or elite club.

As an incentive to sign up they often receive special discounts, invites to product launches, early access and other rewards.

The benefit to you is that by offering incentives and rewarding customers’ loyalty, you encourage them to keep coming back to you and buying from your business.

You also have the benefit of beginning to build a list of clients that you can regularly market to and offer deals to.

For example, if you have an online store and sell health food products, you could create a VIP membership program for customers, where one of the main benefits is free shipping.

You could also offer special deals, such as a free gift (perhaps a sample of a new product you want to promote) with each purchase over $30.

The free shipping encourages people to join your VIP Membership Program, now allowing you to continue to regularly market to them, and the free gift with purchase offer incentivizes them to purchase from you.

For another example, if you sell a weight loss course online, you could have a free or paid upsell Facebook group page where they can more easily reach you, interact with others, ask questions pertaining to their own weight loss journey, etc..

This has two main benefits: 1) It can increase the chance that they’ll see future messages / marketing from you (like via Facebook) and 2) It can be a super easy upsell that you can add without any extra real work on your part to initially make it!

For instance, you can sell access and include the ability to ask you any question and get a response from an expert, which in the eyes of a lot of prospects can be a huge value.

However, to you, it might be something super easy that you might do anyway (answering your customers) but now you can get paid for it!

So consider creating a membership program, where your customers become part of a community, and receive special benefits, (for example, free shipping, early access to sales, special deals, free gifts with purchase).

This allows you to start to build a list of leads and customers to market to and also encourages customers to continue to purchase from you.

One of the best things you can do to get people to take action, especially online, is to offer a free plus shipping & handling offer.

These offers have an obvious HUGE value because nothing beats free, and by having them pay a small S&H fee, they still see the value in the free product, despite how often times your products’ costs might be completely covered in this S&H fee.

For instance, if you go to a site like Aliexpress.com, which specializes in drop-shipping products of all sorts, you can find lots of jewelry, pet toys, gadgets, etc. for under $2 that already include free shipping.

Some of these have perceived values of easily $10 to $30 or more.

That means that your customers get an awesome deal by thinking they got the bargain of a lifetime, while you also get a steal of a deal by getting a new customer at better than no cost to you (if the product and shipping costs $2, for instance, you’re up $3 in profit just by charging a $5 S&H fee).

Obviously, it’s hard to strike it rich at a few bucks at a time, which is why you want to treat these offers as only an entry point into your sales funnel/offers.

You want to offer them additional upsells, other products/services on your backend, and take full advantage of their e-mail address to reach out with additional offers in the future, as everything from that point on could be pure profit for you (at least in terms of no advertising costs).

We’ve started entire businesses around this model.

You can really up your profits here, like we did, by not only getting lots of front-end buyers in with an amazing free plus S&H deal, but by then offering several related upsells, including a recurring one with a big bonus worth more than the first payment, which can skyrocket your conversions into your biggest money makers in your funnel.

This all sets you up to get great conversions both on your cheap front-end to get a lot of buyers, but also get great conversions on your upsells that make your real money.

Never underestimate the power of getting something for free or a big bonus with a smaller purchase.

So consider an impulse buy product with a free plus S&H offer where you don’t lose money after collecting the small S&H charge.

Then upsell additional offers to make the most of your money.