Last Week we continued our look at the 3 most common social media mistakes jewelers make with Mistake #2: Trying to Market on Too Many Channels. This week we conclude our discussion with the third biggest mistake jewelers make.
Mistake #3: Trying to Market to Everyone
If you attempt to target everyone, you target no one.
The average consumer is exposed to 5,000 marketing messages per day, which means your marketing efforts need to stand out by being the most tailored to your audience. If you attempt to market to a large audience that is too diverse with a wide range of wants, needs, and desires you will be unable to craft marketing messages that resonate with anyone. Additionally, with this shotgun approach your marketing message is competing against a much larger pool of competitors. You want to target a narrow audience, a rifle approach, and create messages tailored to them.
There is an old story often used in sales training about two shoe salesmen who went to Africa to sell shoes. Upon arriving they found that none of the African natives wore shoes. The first shoe salesman called his company stating he is coming home because no one wears shoes. The second salesman also called his company asking them to send more shoes because the market is wide open!
Without fail every sales trainer that has used that story, condemns the first salesman and praises the second salesman. While there are great lessons to be learned in staying positive and the value of persistence in sales training, from a marketing perspective the first salesman is the wise one and the second is very foolish.
The natives in this story did not wear shoes because they did not want to wear shoes. Why would anyone choose to spend their time and their company’s money marketing a product or service to people who do not want to use it!
Today on social media most companies operate like that second salesman. Every month countless hours and millions of dollars are spent marketing products and services on social media websites like Facebook, and the vast majority of it is wasted. It’s like flushing money down the toilet!
The problem is not from using social media to market your products and services. The problem stems from not taking the time to define and target your ideal audience.
Yes, Facebook has 1.4 billion members. Social media offers the opportunity to reach consumers like no other media in history. But that doesn’t mean you should just throw your money up in the air and hope the wind will blow it in the right direction to bring the consumers into your store.
Building the Right Following
Facebook Charlatans have sold many a store owner a big ol’ bottle of snake oil on this one. The truth is the more Fans you have on Facebook the more difficult it is to market to them!
When someone connects to your Facebook Business page they click on the “Like” button. The process is called “Liking” a page. Once you do so you are a “Fan” of the business. Facebook did not take those terms lightly when developing Business Pages. You do not want someone to “Like” your page if they already do not like your business, and you do not want people to be “Fans” of your page if they are not a fan of your jewelry store.
When Facebook considers content from Business Pages to post in the Newsfeed, the ‘Engagement Rate’ of the page is a top consideration. The Engagement Rate is the percentage of Fans who have engaged with the page or a page post. The amount of engagement is not nearly as important as the rate of engagement (amount of engagement divided by number of Fans). The fewer Fans you have and the higher quality of Fans you have, the easier it is to receive a high Engagement Rate and the more Facebook will share your posts with their users.
If a Fan of your page ever clicks on a privacy setting telling Facebook that they do not want to see future posts from your page, it is like a nail in the coffin to your marketing. When you have numerous Fans who are unfamiliar with your store, the likelihood of this happening is much greater. Having promotions for the sole purpose of increasing your Fanbase or buying Fans should always be avoided. Your Facebook Fan base should never be seen as a prospecting list, but a list of your store’s ambassadors. The quality of Fans is always more important than the quantity of Fans.
The Ultimate Targeting Machine
When someone joins Facebook all their profile information is stored in a database. Every activity including liking a photo or video, commenting on or sharing a post, or adding content to their profile is recorded and added to that database. Facebook has more information on the interest and behaviors of its members than any other organization in history.
As if this massive database was not large enough, Facebook partnered with the 3 largest data services; Epson, Acxion & Datalogix, and compiled all the information in their databases with theirs. These data services are the companies that marketing firms go to for lists of people based on demographics and psychographics information (such as people in a specific zip code with a certain income level or net worth).
Facebook allows you to access this information with “Lookalike Audiences” in their Ad Manager. You supply Facebook with a list of your ideal target audience either by an e-mail list of your best customers or preferably your page’s Fanbase (provided you grew your Fanbase properly as discussed above). Facebook then goes through their enormous database and compiles a list of all their Interests, Behaviors, and Shopping Preferences, along with their demographic profile. From this list Facebook then compiles a Prospect List of all the people in your geographical area with the same demographics and psychographics and only shows your Ad to people on that list.
Since this list of prospects is finely tuned to people extremely similar to your best customers, the likelihood of them being interested in your products and services is very high. In addition, as your ads receive more positive responses, Facebook lowers the cost of showing your Ads to their users.
The more targeted this list is to your ideal customer, the better your chances for the viewers to come into your store to make a purchase and the lower your cost is for the ads. It’s truly a win-win situation!
Brad Simon is co-owner of Internet 4 Jewelers and specializes in Social Media Marketing exclusively for retail jewelry stores. They are dedicated to Making Social Media Simple and Affordable for Every Jeweler, and provide Content Packages for jewelry stores doing their own marketing, as well as Affordable Full-Service Social Media Management and Facebook Ad Campaign Management. For more information you can contact Brad at 864-680-4416 or Brad@Internet4Jewelers.com or visit their website at www.Internet4Jewelers.com.
