If you could target a group of people who earn over $200K, subscribe to the AFR and investment sites and read articles about self-managed superannuation would take the opportunity? Social media provides you with a platform that enables you to target potential clients with this detail and to present them with your content.
There are still many in the financial services industry who are not sure about social media and whether it offers a return on investment. Social is a triple threat in terms of marketing; it’s easy, efficient and effective. It is more than popping a post or article up any time you remember or occasionally if you have something to say.
Social media allows you to not only communicate with a broad audience but to target new potential clients through paid advertising.
Why should you consider paid advertising?
Paid advertising or boosting your social media posts enables you to extend the reach of your content, specifically targeting potential clients, with discrete characteristics.
Putting a budget behind your social media will differ between social media platforms and the goal you’re hoping to achieve. Are you trying to increase engagement, boost awareness or generate more click throughs to your website? Boosting social media posts is not particularly expensive and a little can help you reach a wide range of people that your organic posts would not otherwise reach.
Promoting your business on social media is a great way to attract potential leads that can eventually turn into customers. With a little investment, your business social media accounts can be a success. It will take time to build up a social media following and presence, persistence is key.
Source: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/data/social-media-connection/
When a boosting a post and it attracts likes and comments, it is best to keep the conversation going, reply to comments and invite people to like the page so they can view your future content. The higher your social engagement, the greater organic reach your business will have therefore every piece of content will have a larger audience.
How do you create value and efficiency?
Make sure your social media efforts are part of your communication strategy rather than functioning as a standalone task. Social media can complement and amplify existing efforts such as email marketing, paid media, and website optimisation. This will also be more efficient for you in terms of your content generation and will present a consistent message to your clients.
Measure success in context
As with any marketing effort, measure your success. Social measurement can’t happen in a silo. Your success will largely depend on your reach, so using paid advertising while it may involve using a few dollars, may drive greater results.
Your social results can be tracked through the various metrics such as the number of impressions, your click rate, or leads if you have set this up as part of your campaign.
Attributing sales outcomes requires sophisticated tracking techniques and understanding where social media adds the most value in the sales funnel. It’s essential to look at your social media holistically to understand a post’s impact on client buying decisions.
Plan for the unknowns and for when things get busy
Did you drop your client communications last March when the COVID-19 pandemic hit? Or were you able to communicate more regularly with your clients?
This situation isn’t, we hope, going to be a regular occurrence, but you may have a busy period with a number of reviews or study. To reduce the risk of letting your client communication fall be the wayside, plan and where possible, schedule your posts and assign team members responsibilities. It can be something you rotate through staff which will also engage them in your marketing.
The pandemic was a wake-up call for many businesses, particularly those who are newer to social media or less invested. Social media provided a unique channel to communicate with clients and connect with them as the landscape changed rapidly in the absence of face-to-face meetings.
Measuring your results
Measuring your success online can be difficult as a lot of engagement can involve raising awareness of your brand and connecting with others, however here are a few things to take note of when measuring the success of your posts:
- More followers, likes and shares
- Traffic on your website has increased
- Sales and enquiries have increased
Facebook and LinkedIn offer ‘Insights’ into the posts that you boost – statistics, number of people reached and post engagements.
If you’re wanting to improve your results, test out a few different audiences, styles of posts and post formats ( ie article or a video), and you will be able to see what works better for your brand. This information can then not only inform your future social content but also your broader marketing and sales messages.
Every business has different goals and ways it measures success. Social media can help you achieve those goals, but it’s important to stick to the basics, have patience and persevere.
Every brand is different. Let yours shine on social media.
