Using Facebook to Generate Leads during COVID-19

Facebook is a social networking site that has allowed millions of people worldwide to connect to family, friends, and colleagues. Mark Zuckerberg originally designed it for college students while enrolled at Harvard University. Today, Facebook is one of the most widely used social media platforms. It has revolutionised the way we keep in contact with people and share information in different parts of the globe. Families have become more spread out with migration and business products and services transcend boundaries, opening doors of undeniable opportunities. The social media site is available in 37 different languages, enabling personal and business relationships to come together.

Whether used for personal or professional or both, Facebook provides a window front that invites people to view inside, share videos, photographs, and messages. Indeed, it is a virtual bulletin board. The social media giant has become a legitimate method to attract and reach prospective clients by promoting business online. Do you have a clear understanding of your avatar and whether you are business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C)? If used wisely, Facebook can be an affordable platform to help provide exposure to your company and generate leads.

To generate leads, you first need to have a presence:

1. Create a business page that is independent of your profile.
2. Align your cover photo with your business.
3. Provide detail in your ‘About’ section.
4. Have an audit trail of promotional posts that are a mixture of tips and articles relevant to your industry.
5. Post consistently on your Facebook business page to add value to the reader.
6. Add your Facebook business page URL to your website and email footer.
7. Invite people to like and follow your business page.
8. Ask people that have engaged in your services to write a review.
9. Post in other groups to create presence and engagement.
10. Do not stop being present through Covid-19.

Once you have this in place, you want to start to generate leads:

• Use the 4 ‘L’s Lead Generation Strategy:
  • Lead-Capturing buyers are interested and want information before buying from a company, and we need to give before we can ask for their information.
  • Lead Magnets work if you are providing value (training videos, webinars, free trial, etc.) in exchange for their contact details and permit you to follow up on your proposed offer. It allows a company to gather information about the client with consent to continue to nurture the relationship through the client journey.
  • Landing Pages are a great asset to your business to entice someone to click on your advert. This page is separate from your website and is typically used for single marketing campaigns and can be highly effective on Facebook.
  • Lead Scoring is a methodology used to determine the worthiness of a lead and assigns a numerical value to each one achieved through automation.

• Carry out surveys as they give you valuable information about your leads that help you foster relationships.
• Sponsored Adverts allow you to set a budget, define your target audience and have a call to action, which is a cost-effective way to reach prospective clients. Creating multiple sponsored adverts allows you to test various strategies to understand what works best for your business. Use different images and varied language.
• Lead Nurturing is more effective when it is personalised and allows you to show you are not only able to identify a problem but resolve it.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) a software every company should have. It allows you to effectively manage your client interaction, both new and old, to optimise and systemise relationships. It is crucial to be able to measure the success of campaigns and understand your ROI.

Facebook is only useful if you have a clear strategy and purpose – like driving a car, you get into it with a destination in mind. Facebook has the potential to steer traffic to your website. Likewise, its targeted advertising provides valuable data to maintain course or make an informed decision to change direction with your marketing strategy.

Creative content will win every time. People relate to emotion and love engaging in videos and posts that evoke emotion, add value, and solve their problem. Potential customers do not want to feel ‘sold to’; they want to experience authenticity. Brian Tracy summed it up perfectly, “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.”