20 August 2019
The 4 Ws of social media marketing.
We are still on our series of "How to Market on Social Media", if you missed reading past post, here is a link to help you catch up on what we have been discussing about marketing on social media in the past.
How to market on social media part 1:
How to market on social media Part 2:
The purpose of turning to social media for marketing could be one out of the three for your brand
1. To build awareness for your brand
2. To generate leads and sales for your brand
3. To engage your customers online.
Which ever it is, it helps you make sales now or in the future.
Clearly, social media was not primarily designed for sales of goods or services but to connect people to people or things that interest them. If you as a business wants to use the platform to sell to your audiences, just like what great brands do, then there must be a way on how to go about selling on social media.
To get started, there are key questions you should be able to answer in other to be clear on what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it and what the result will be.
There are 4 key questions you should ask about your business and it is called the 4 Ws of social media marketing.
1. Who are you Targeting?
Facebook alone has over 1billion users and I am sure you don't think just like some people would say, "our product is for everyone"? I always ask them including a 6 months old child? . NO your product cannot be for everyone, so your first W would be who you are targeting online. Define them.
For example as a make up artist who want to use social media to market my business, I should define who my target audience are. They could be young girls between the age of 18-30, who want to enhance their facial appearance and slay for any indoor or outdoor event they attend. Now that is a target market. Young girls who want to uplift their looks for event.
Once you define who your audience are, you need to find out where they can be found online. For girls who want to enhance their beauty and look classy for events, Instagram surly Will be where they congregate. Because Instagram is a highly visual platform and makeup is highly visual.
Now I know who my prospects are online and where I can find them. Next,
2 Why are you Targeting them?
You need to be clear on why you think they need what you are offering. Still on the make up artist example, why do they need my make up service? As the make up artist, it helps them build confidence, feel empowered and stand out in any event they went to. This hits the core of why ladies make up and as a make up artist, I can help them achieve that. And that's why I am targeting them.
You see how things have been tailored specifically? Now my offer as a make up artist can be communicated clearly to attract my clients.
3. What is the Market saying?
Even though I have clearly defined my audience as a make up artist and know where to find them or why I am targeting them, I need to know what the market is saying about make up currently. Is there any barrier to buying from me that would hinder sales?
How do you know that the offers you are making will work?
It is quite simple, the answer lies in what your market is saying! I'll give you an example of when one of my offers failed woefully.
Few years back my church was amongst first church to adopt social media in the town where I was and some of our pastor's were fascinated by it and many of them were interested about social media asking me several questions.
So I assumed that if I put up a masterclass where they were taught about using social media as a pastor, they'd gladly pay. So I designed that offer and I got a friend in our media department who as at then was the media head to help market the class to our pastors.
On the day of the masterclass, no pastor signed up , nobody , Nobody paid for the class.
Thinking about it after some years now I realised something, While those pastors desired to learn about social media they'd not gotten to the point where they wanted it badly because they did not know how it is connected to doing ministry or how it could help their ministry grow.
2. I didn't answer the question of "So if I set up a social media page for my ministry, so what next?" It means they either needed to have someone manage it for them or understood how to grow the platform themselves. I didn't cover that angle.
Maybe I could redesign the offer better now but would focus on something different , looking at the end desire and want of pastors today. Would pitch an offer to pastors who wants to author a book or already authored one. My focus is not on writing their book. There are many people who are offering that both writing for pastors and teaching them how to write.
For me, that is not the main offer. The real offer is answering the question after you write your book what next?
So any pastor who has written a book wants to sell it beyond his congregation. So I could pitch using social media to help them build global influence,impact and income with their book. Now that is beyond just selling your book online. that is building global influence through just one book and making millions online.
So my offer now ties to helping them achieve three things : Global influence,impact and income.
Don't you want to make millions and be influential?
You need to understand the language of your market and,
1. Speak the language desire of the market.
2. Pitch the offer of the language to capture the acute want of the market.
3. Consistently highlight the urgency and problem that will happen if they don't take your offer.
Find out what your market is saying.
4. What is your Offer?
If you are not making offers online, you will not make money online. I will be writing more on this in a future post. For now, once you understand what the need of the market is, make an offer to help your brand make money and the people solve their problem. But you need to know what time is the best time to make the offer. This and more I will discuss in a future post for the psychology of offers. But once you understand the need of your market, it helps you to craft an offer that is irressitable by your target audience.
Remember, selling on social media is an intentional game and you must play by the rules.
Justus Inspire
Is a UX/UI Designer and can be reached at justusoseuno@gmail.com
