Connecting with Your Customers
To create an offer on Facebook { or any other social site } you’ll need to take your marketing to the next level and give your customers an offer they can’t refuse.
{ Did you just read that in your best Godfather voice? }
We can throw our stuff up on a web page all day long but what’s really going to get people to click on it? What’s going to make them take that extra step and give you their email or better yet, buy something from your site?
It starts with that simple exercise that we walked through in the Secret to Sell Your Products Online post. It’s about knowing the the difference between the features and benefits of your products or services.
Most of us confuse our list of features with benefits. To dig down deep and find out your blog or business’ benefits, you’ll need to answer this question for your customers, “What’s in it for me?”
To learn more about how to figure out your features and benefits, take a few moments to read and do the exercises in the Secret to Sell Your Products Online post
How do you get People to Click on Your Links
OK – now that you’ve done the exercise, you’ve got your list of features and benefits. How do you use this all this crunchy goodness of information to help you get more people to click on your links?
Before you start trying to squeeze as many benefits as you can into one sentence in your next Facebook post, I want you to do one more thing – work through the What’s In It For My Customers Test.
For your customers to click on your links, they need to clearly understand what’s in it for them. Think about these questions before you start pulling together the copy for your offer:
1. Are you offering something that solves a problem for your customers?
2. What problem does your offer solve?
3. Are your customers even aware of how your product or service is the solution to their problem?
When you answer the above questions, don’t just give me a one-word answer. Think about your answer, I mean, really think about it.
If your answer to any of these questions was yes, then ask yourself, “OK they get this but what information do they really know about my stuff? And how are they receiving this information from me?”
And if you’re not sure how to answer these questions, then you need to do some work on understanding how your benefits help your customers. How can you can share this message with them if you don’t have a clear answer yourself?
The One Thing Your Offer Needs
After you’ve worked through all these questions and figured out the benefits of your programs or products, let’s look at the one thing that makes an offer so great that your customers will click on the link and share it with their social circle.
It’ll be so awesome that it’ll be an offer that they can’t refuse.
Your offer needs to show that your program or product has more value than risk. It’s just that simple.
For most people, the amount of risk is equal to a dollar amount. Everyone has their own number in their head about what’s too high and what’s the number that they’ll pay.
Think about how you can create an offer that shows them value and help ease their mind about the costs involved. Can you offer them free shipping? Bonus ‘if you act now’ products and money-back guarantees are other great ways to relieve your customer’s mind about risk.
Try to word your offer with something like this: For the price of lunch at your favorite restaurant, you can get this resource-rich workbook to help you solve your XYZ problem.
When you compare your costs to something they’re already doing every week, it helps to reduce their risk. Think of like this – your customers are not paying more for something that they’ve already budgeted in as an expense.
What’s the Next Step?
One of the biggest mistakes people make when they craft their marketing messages is they forget to tell you what to do next.
You read their posts and it’s full of amazing information. But what am I supposed to do after I read this great stuff?
Most people are just as busy as you are and if you don’t tell them what action they need to take and when to do it, chances are, they’ll skip right past your offer.
Make sure your offer has a clear call to action:
- click here to get the free worksheet
- call now to schedule your appointment
- enter your email for exclusive access
- subscribe now
- risk-free for you to try
- trial membership
And think of ways to add in a sense of urgency:
- deadline dates to buy before the rates go up
- early bird prices
- limited time offer
- special bonus for acting now
- try it free for 21 days
- don’t wait another minute
Just asking someone to sign up for your free newsletter isn’t a compelling offer anymore. People want to know why they should sign up. What kind of information are you going to give me?
Your goal with your offers is more than just getting someone’s email address.
Your goal is to establish trust and show your customers that you know what you know. You’ll show them what it’s like to buy one of your programs or products. You’ll let them know how you can help them and ultimately, they’ll learn what it’s like to work with you and pay you for your services.
And I know what you’re going to ask me so let just say it – yes, the best place to start is to give them something FREE.
I don’t care how much money you make, everyone likes to get something of value for free. It’s just how we’re wired.
But the trick is to find that thing that makes people WANT to download your free thing.
If you want to connect with your customer, give them something that wraps up everything we talked about – provide them with value, create a sense of urgency and show them with action-oriented copy about how this offer is helping them solve a problem when they buy/download/watch/whatever.
Here are some examples of free offers that don’t work anymore:
- Contact us forms
- Download our product specs
- Request a quote or free consultation
- An invitation to enjoy inspiration
Here’s what falls into the great free offers category:
- Ebooks with step-by-step guidelines about how to do something
- Free workshops
- Live and recorded podcasts
- Free printable cheat sheets and templates to help make their life easier
- Checklists to help them organize a project
- Free chapters from a paid ebook { to promote the purchase of the complete ebook }
- Videos with printable worksheets to help them work through the ideas in the videos
An offer they can’t refuse is more than a request for a quote.
It has to inspire them, give them ideas to move past a block in their business or help them brainstorm their way to get the answers they’re looking for to keep moving forward.
Your offer needs to convince your customer that your product or service is something that they want, something they need and it’s worth giving up their email address to get it.
Photo credit: Mr Corleone
Want more tips like these to give you better results with your social media marketing?
Get my FREE step-by-step process to the answer to your questions about how to stop wasting your time on social media. The Social Biz Builder ecourse will give you simple easy to follow action steps to give you clarity with your social media strategy help you find your focus to stop wasting your time online – and find the right customers who are looking for what you’re selling.
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