Five Secrets To Affordable Social Media Marketing

This is tied into why 97% of those who are on social media get no return and waste all their time and money. They try to start posting random things out there hoping that somehow their excellent, most amazing customer is going to walk in – and we all know that marketing does not work that way.

Instead, you want to set up your social media efforts to be like a magnet for your perfect prospects.

Think of Facebook, in particular, as a cocktail party where people are hanging out and you want to be the magnet. You want these people to be attracted to you.

This means you cannot be everything to everyone; you have to decide who you are for, who your perfect prospect is, and how you are going to attract that kind of person to you.

The best way to start doing that is to start from a place of value because, again – it’s a cocktail party, not a shopping mall. They’re not there to shop, they’re there to hang out. If you’re at a cocktail party and someone walks right up to you to start selling, you’re going to think they’re annoying. Use that same principle for social media.

Instead, if you start talking about how you got into an accident and how you’re having these issues, and then an insurance agent says that there’s a book that they have that can give you a lot of tips on how to deal with that situation then, well, that’s something of value.

So, you do the same thing on Facebook.

Start with a lead magnet. This can be something in the form of a free report, a video series, a gift certificate, or a discount code.

What you’re not going to do is host a contest for an iPad; you’re not going to do something that will attract the masses, but instead, something that will be specific to your target market.

For example, something we do is a free report that just offers a bit of information. People who come into that funnel eventually emerge as members, and it’s a great, quick, and cheap way to get this done.

And now you have a magnet. Great. Where does this magnet go now? And how are you going to promote this magnet?

The answers to these questions lie in our next step.

The goal is to get people out of social media as quickly as possible. Facebook is a congested space full of a multitude of distractions, and Candy Crush ads. You want to get your prospects out of that space as quickly as possible.

This next viewpoint is a controversial one, based on some of the companies out there that try to create all these landing pages on Facebook.

Let’s go back to that cocktail party. Any time you want to hang out at this cocktail party, you want to have an invitation and be a magnet to get them out of there and onto your own landing page, where all they can see and do is enter their contact information. You want to take them out of Facebook.

So, to recap, you want to be a magnet by offering something of value, and then you will move them out of Facebook to a landing page.

Normally, you would want to reach your prospects through paid advertisements, but because we’re talking about affordable marketing, we’ll go with an alternative: staying active and focusing on organic social growth.

No one is going to approach you if you’re a wallflower at a cocktail party, so get chatty.

Fill your business page with really great content. Maintain an active social media presence. Not only will this let you discover potential prospects, but these prospects could also discover you in this way, especially if whatever you’re posting means something of value to them.

Show them you know what you’re doing, give them tips, and show them results like testimonials, reviews, and even some snippets of your website content. You can also build trust by posting about your team and their daily activities. Be transparent.

This approach will be slower than traditional, pricey strategies, but that’s to be expected. If you have the patience to see it through, it will still give you a loyal and engaged following – possibly even more than a paid advertisement could. And when you have gained the following, then you can move on to our next step.

One little-known place is the cover photo on your Facebook page. Everyone knows it's a clickable image, but have you ever thought to use the description of that image as an opt-in opportunity?

For example, let’s say you’re an accounting firm, and your lead magnet is something like “10 Ways To Save Taxes At Year End”.

You’re going to put that free report in your cover photo and say, “Click here to get a copy!”, so once they do that and click on the photo, they’ll see the link in the caption, and then they’ll be directed to your actual landing page.

That’s now an opt-in.

You can do the same thing with the About Us section of your page – all you have to do is type in the URL of your landing page, and that becomes a clickable link. These are two places that very few people use, but it could be a source of several free leads for you in a week.

When you have an organic following, you can place your opt-in links in numerous places. You can insert it at the end of a lead magnet with the promise of learning more, the bio of your business page, and basically anywhere you can think of without it being too in your face.

Now, I know we’re supposed to only be talking about affordable strategies with little to no money involved, or anything, but – let me tell you this one thing, and you can make what you will of it.

Facebook is the only place where you can market demographics and psychographics without having to buy a list.

You can target people based on their income, their home value, their profession, and their buying habits. This is behavioral targeting, and it is an incredibly powerful thing.

So if you’re going to invest in any kind of marketing on social media, I would advocate for Facebook. And you should only spend money to get them to opt in. Nothing else.

The next step is to get a Micro-Commitment from them, but what exactly is a Micro-Commitment?

Let’s say you want to go on a date with a person you’ve met at this bar. You ask them to have a conversation, buy them a drink, maybe get a phone number, and if all goes well you’ve landed a date. You didn’t just ask them to go out with you straight up – you accomplished multiple steps to get that eventual result. Micro-Commitment is the same thing.

Again, it’s not a shopping mall. Most people don’t go on Facebook to buy something. We’ve gone over luring them in with a lead magnet, and after that you can’t just go right to the, “Hey, I got a book. Please buy a $700 product.” That won’t work.

Instead, you’re going to take them through a series of Micro-Commitments, which means little things that they can do to begin trusting you. Think of it like you’re preparing them to buy for you. You will have to nurture them a little bit more than you would if they had come straight from Google, or maybe even from direct mail.

What we’ve personally found success in is having the first page just ask for an email address. That’s it. No names or anything, just an email address.

The second page is an upsell for a product package that’s $4.95. So, that got them to agree to hand over their contact information.

Page three is when they’re asked for their credit card information, and it isn’t until the very bottom of that page that they are asked to upgrade or add on a membership trial.

The amazing thing is that 60% of the people who went through that funnel took the membership. You don’t even have to stick to a landing page either, you could do it in emails, follow-up emails, or maybe even send them into a webinar where you then nurture them into a sale.

It could be a direct mail campaign too, either way, there needs to be a series of nurturing through micro-commitments before you ask them to make the big purchase.

Give them a call to action. Tell them what you want them to do.

In the copy of the page, at the bottom of your lead magnet – put an open loop that people want to click through in order to find out on the landing page what else the story is going to say. People hate cliffhangers, after all.

How does the story end? Keep that curiosity going.

Whenever you put a campaign together, you’ll want to figure out what the end result is going to be. Let’s say you’re a travel agency, and you want to sell more tour packages to big families. When you have that end result in mind, you’re going to move backward.

You’re going to think about what the interests of those people are and build a lead magnet off of that.
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​“How To Have A Hassle Free Trip With More Than Two Children”, or something like that. Then you’re going to write posts about that, all driving to the same offer, that you want to get people to download this free brochure.

And that brochure has an offer for a hassle-free, all-inclusive travel package to the Bahamas. Everything should tie in together.

If you just start posting random articles, random concepts, or sharing things that you think people might be interested in – that’s social media, but that is not how you’re going to be able to monetize.

You need to know exactly what you want your target market to do, and all of your posts going forward should progress towards that ultimate goal.

While my personal sentiments toward social media may be less than enthusiastic, the reality is that it has become an integral part of the business landscape.

As we've explored the MMOMM strategy – Magnet, Move, Opt-in, Micro Commitment, and Monetize – we've unveiled a systematic approach to make social media marketing not just affordable but also effective.

Understanding these secrets and strategies can make all the difference if you don’t have a big marketing budget. While the landscape may be crowded and distractions abound, a strategic approach that values quality over quantity can set you apart and unlock the full potential of your online presence.

If you’d like to learn more about social media marketing strategies, you can do so by registering for our NO B.S Newsletter. Or if you want to go even deeper and surround yourself with a community of budding entrepreneurs and business owners like you, I recommend joining us at Diamond, where you’ll gain access to our special Facebook group, monthly masterclasses, Q&As, and more.