The Bigger Picture of Digital Marketing in 2021
I have a good website and products. My social media marketing is not resulting in sales. Do I need a media expert?
Analyse past sales patterns
My view is that whether your social media drives sales or not depends on your industry and your target audience.
For the vast majority of businesses, social media does not result in direct sales. This is because customers are not in “buying mode” when browsing social sites.
And so here’s a quick check which you can do – share it here as well if you want more feedback.
- List all the sales you made in the past month(s)
- Rank them by value highest $ down to lowest
- For the top 20% by value, write down against each one how the customer came to buy from you
- Is there a pattern?
So for example in (3) above – you might say they came from your mailing list, they might be a previous customer, word of mouth recommendation, or walked into your shop or know a staff member.
It may pay to do some follow up calls if you can – or to ask every January 2021 customer how they found out about you and see if the pattern develops in the same way.
Know your customers
From this, you will begin to learn more about your existing customer base. What their patterns of behaviour are and how your business gets its sales.
Now, if you think this type of customer ALSO uses social and might be persuaded to buy from you via that channel, this is the time to review your marketing strategy and see if social media could bring you sales.
The Bigger Picture of Digital Marketing in 2021
Three things for you to check first
The vast majority of social “sales” come from paid advertising or retail shop listings on social sites. So you need to review your margins and your advertising budget for 2021 in your marketing strategy before deciding to launch into social media marketing in a big way. Can you afford to both hire a social media marketing expert and buy advertising on social? Or would your money be better spent on the channels you already have which bring in customers from your analysis in the steps 1-4 above.
Content marketing is more than just “social media”. The things you are posting on your social channels could also be put to use in newsletters, website blogs and in-store. So don’t only talk about social media – go broader to review whether content marketing is right for your business.
Consult experts to get yourself quickly up the learning curve. BUT be cautious about hiring people who have worked in big enterprise firms – a client of mine got badly burned using an expert who just spent a lot of money with only $800 return for their multi-month investment in their services. Yes they did take up references – and you should too. Become an expert in how to brief a marketing agency first – this will clarify what they do and set expectations. Below are links to articles which you should read first.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/tag/how-to-brief-a-freelancer/