Picture this: Two small med tech company owners are chit-chatting at the local pickleball court. One eagerly shares that the company’s profile just hit 7.2k followers on LinkedIn. But when asked about converting those followers into revenue, silence follows.
This is a classic case of vanity metrics, a common pitfall among trendy small medical device companies. I can easily name five companies with 2-10k followers who merely post new hire announcements and updates about upcoming events. Never anything interesting or valuable to the customers they want to sell products to.
I won’t delve into how they amassed such a following, but it’s common for them not to be all potential buyers; instead, they might be job seekers, competitors, investment groups, etc.
Now the big question(s), how do you turn these vanity metrics into actual revenue and growth?
- Start posting valuable content
- Drive people into an automated sales funnel
Let’s spend the next three minutes learning how you can start putting those followers to good use.
Start Posting Valuable Content
You might have noticed that we’re big supporters of inbound marketing; prioritizing content that genuinely enhances the lives of your potential customers is our jelly and jam. If you want the cheat code to people see you as an expert and believe that your product or service will solve their problem, it’s giving away valuable content for free. The fact that you may have a couple thousand followers who can see this content makes this a no-brainer.
What does this social media content look like? It could be in the form of videos, articles, guides, checklists, or tutorials. The options are limitless (not limitless but that sounded cool). Begin with what you’re comfortable with, but if we had our say, we’d opt for a short-form video and we talk about how to get started with it here.
What will be the focus of your content? The temptation might be to solely discuss your product, but it’s crucial to resist that urge. The better approach is to address what matters to your potential customers. For example, we are a marketing company that helps small companies grow through inbound marketing. Rather than promoting our kickass inbound marketing boot camp, we offer free advice to small business owners and executives through articles and videos on effective marketing strategies for business growth. This demonstrates our expertise, and perhaps someday they’ll think of us to assist in driving growth at their small business.
The aim of social media content is clear: engage your audience, which will lead to two outcomes.
- They will share your content which attracts more followers, increasing the potential for additional people to become customers of your product.
- They will click on the links in your posts and articles that drive them into your automated sales funnel (we call this a smooth transition)
Drive People Into an Automated Sales Funnel
You are probably thinking to yourself “What’s this talk about automated sales funnels? I need these folks to fill out a form pronto so one of my sales reps can reach out to them immediately!”
First, stop yelling at me. If someone is genuinely interested in your product or service, they’ll take that step, and your sales team can handle the rest. I’m talking about the remaining 97% of your audience who aren’t quite ready to take that next step.
So, how do you keep them engaged? You push them into your automated sales funnels with lead generators aka lead magnets (we talk about that here). Then you continue to connect with them through automated email sequences run through your CRM (customer relationship management) system.
Setting up automated email workflows in your CRM is well worth the time and money. It allows you to actively engage potential customers through personalized emails while you handle the 15 other things you juggle with on a day-to-day basis. It also means the lead is more qualified to speak with you when they click on the “Talk Now” button on the top right corner of your website (you better have one).
Everything I just discussed above does not happen overnight. You will need to take baby steps to get there but it is well worth it. If you properly execute an inbound marketing strategy you will grow. Start with these four steps.
- Develop a 90-day social media content strategy. You can read this great article to get started.
- Start writing or filming content for your strategy. Don’t try to post every day at first. You will likely quit and blame me.
- Build out a simple lead generator (we talk about that here) and put it on a landing page. Lucky for you almost every CRM has a drag-and-drop module for landing pages so even you can build one.
- Collect emails from that lead generator and put them into the automated email sequences you wrote to nurture them along. (Read Marketing Made SImple by Donald Miller to learn how to write sales and nurture emails)
If you are still unsure where to begin, schedule a 15-minute meeting with me for some free advice. I will point you in the right direction and give you actionable steps to grow your business through marketing. Click here to meet with me.
