Nicole Donnelly: How To Leverage Social Media To Get Customers And Close Sales
Founders Live Influencers Series
(VIDEO and Q&A) – Nicole Donnelly: How To Leverage Social Media To Get Customers And Close Sales
This discussion is titled How To Leverage Social Media To Get Customers And Close Sales. The talk includes Nicole covering how to approach your social media activities from a sales perspective, and how to reconnect with potential customers via social media to get more sales and grow your customer base! It begins with a short video segment above featuring Nicole and was followed by a group discussion with many more questions on social media and email marketing. Read more below!
MONDAY, JANUARY 22
Team Founders Live11:57 am
Hello Founders Live! We’re about ready to get started with today’s FL Influencer series talk on Social Media. We’re joined by Nicole Donnelly and she’s talking about How to Get More Sales and Revenue using social media. Before we get going, watch Nicole’s talk on the general feed.
Or below
Nicole Donnelly for Founders Live – How To Get More Sales Using Social Media
Nicole Donnelly shares how you can get more sales by using social media for your business. www.saltywaffle.com social media tool for automating content distribution and engagement
We’ll start our discussion in here at 12:15PM PT.
Nicole Donnelly12:09 pm
Happy Monday!
Nick Hughes12:12 pm
Hi Nicole. Happy Monday to you too!
Team Founders Live12:12 pm
Hi everyone. Feel free to say hi! Who else is in here?
Nicole Donnelly12:13 pm
The sun has peeked out on us here in Vancouver hooooray!
I just sat down with a French company who’s looking to get more customers and sales from Social Media and we picked their quick wins to implement, which made me wonder where you are? and what quick wins would make a difference for you…Do you have a blog on your site? Feel free to post a link if you do…
Nick Hughes12:13 pm
It’s sunny in Seattle as well. Not sure how long it will stick around though…
Nicole Donnelly12:14 pm
I’ll be down there tomorrow!
Nick Hughes12:14 pm
👍🏼
Ashlee Trempus12:14 pm
Its rainy here in Michigan but hoping for sun tomorrow!
Team Founders Live12:14 pm
Alright, we’re ready to get started here today. We are joined by Nicole Donnelly and we’re talking about social media marketing and increasing sales.
Team Founders Live12:15 pm
THE ROOM IS OPEN FOR ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS YOU MAY HAVE. FEEL FREE TO ASK!
Nicole Donnelly12:15 pm
Hi Ashlee!
Nick Hughes12:15 pm
Hi Ashlee. Thanks for joining in
Ashlee Trempus12:15 pm
Hello Nicole, would you suggest using email as another way to contact clients similar to posting on facebook?
Nicole Donnelly12:15 pm
absolutely!
Team Founders Live12:16 pm
Nicole, you mentioned some may think social media is a waste of time. Well, can you answer why social media is not a waste of time? (for those who might be doubting)
Nicole Donnelly12:16 pm
clients need to hear from you 18 ish times before converting and email is still the most effective lead nurture tool
Ashlee Trempus12:16 pm
An email blast or individual emails?
Cynthia Masterson12:16 pm
Slightly sunny here in Ballard (Seattle)
Nicole Donnelly12:16 pm
making emails look individual, even if they are a blast is best
if you can do individual emails, even better
Ashlee Trempus12:17 pm
Is the 18 times the average for all markets?
Nick Hughes12:17 pm
Regarding emails. Best to use Mailchimp?
Nicole Donnelly12:17 pm
yep
18
We use mailchimp too
Nicole Donnelly12:18 pm
one issue with email senders like mailchimp now is that gmail is so good at sorting out your mail and putting it in a less urgent folder
if you do it straight from gmail, it has best chances of showing up in somebody’s inbox
Ashlee Trempus12:18 pm
How would you send it straight from gmail and still use mailchimp?
Nicole Donnelly12:19 pm
mixmax functions like mailchimp, from inside your inbox, of course it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but it’s a good start
Ashlee, it’s one or the other
Ashlee Trempus12:19 pm
ok thanks!
Nicole Donnelly12:19 pm
😎
Nick Hughes12:19 pm
If sending from gmail, do you get placed on a black list/ spam list if you send to too many over a period of time?
Ashlee Trempus12:20 pm
Can a ask a more specific question related to my business or should we keep the questions general?
Nicole Donnelly12:20 pm
mixmax lets you create auto templates, so if you know that people need certain info, like in a drip nurture function you can use it for that
Team Founders Live12:20 pm
Go ahead Ashlee…
Nicole Donnelly12:20 pm
Ashlee you can get specific
please post a link to your site too Ashlee, I’ll open it up…
Team Founders Live12:21 pm
ANYONE ELSE, FEEL FREE TO GET YOUR QUESTIONS READY AND JUMP IN WHERE YOU FEEL APPROPRIATE.
Ashlee Trempus12:21 pm
I have an online startup that targets American Sign Language students and teachers, how often should i send out emails? is it different for students vs teachers
www.signonconnect.com
Nicole Donnelly12:21 pm
Social media outlets are a way to get to know your customers personally and professionally and learn what they are interested in so that you can more effectively connect with them
Nicole Donnelly12:22 pm
and connection equals trust and trust equals sales
and connections, means top of mind and heart
Nicole Donnelly12:23 pm
www.happycamper.com has a poster with the 6 basic human emotional needs and when those needs are met, people feel very connected, you can ensure the connection through social media!
Ashlee Trempus12:23 pm
We have “packages” in the university bookstores and we do get their emails when they signup but should we use that email to send them blasts after they have already made the sale?
Cynthia Masterson12:24 pm
Any advice for first posts? I JUST set up my socials and there is nothing there yet. My product is a haircare device that is in development. There isn’t an actual product yet.
www.theairhand.com
Nicole Donnelly12:24 pm
You can, you can also use the emails and upload them to FB to target them specifically for ads and promoted posts, so it’s not direct solicitation which may be frowned upon by the bookstores
Team Founders Live12:24 pm
Really cool Ashlee, where are you located?
Nicole Donnelly12:24 pm
Great question Cynthia!!!
Ashlee Trempus12:24 pm
Thank you! Michigan
Team Founders Live12:24 pm
What city in MI?
Nicole Donnelly12:25 pm
Post about cool hair styles or stylists doing cool things, you can curate interesting posts that your would be customers would also be interested in
Ashlee Trempus12:25 pm
Detroit
Nicole Donnelly12:25 pm
There are a lot of stylists and colorists with big followings that you can leverage
Nick Hughes12:25 pm
Great point Nicole. Cynthia, just posting cool and engaging content and images is a good start
Nicole Donnelly12:25 pm
I have a friend who is one and she’s won tons of awards and is all over IG and she sells nothing
Cynthia Masterson12:26 pm
Good suggestions!
IG?
Ashlee Trempus12:26 pm
Is it appropriate to leverage other “people” to grow your following?
Nicole Donnelly12:26 pm
and she’s always posting cool pics of her hair styles in magazines and in runway shows
Instagram
is IG
Cynthia Masterson12:26 pm
got it
Nicole Donnelly12:26 pm
Ashlee, for sure
it’s got to be a win/win
Team Founders Live12:26 pm
Ashlee, you should attend this if you haven’t hear of it yet. Maybe even pitch. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/founders-live-detroit-ticket…
First Founders Live Detroit is on 2/24
Ashlee Trempus12:26 pm
yes! I just signed up for it!
Cynthia Masterson12:27 pm
I’m looking forward to FL Seattle this week!
Team Founders Live12:27 pm
So are we! 200+ people signed up!
Nicole Donnelly12:27 pm
like the relationship that I have with founder’s live, I contribute to this community and then people start to trust me and when they are ready for social media tools, here I am
Ashlee Trempus12:27 pm
Wow! thats awesome!
Team Founders Live12:27 pm
Nicole, What is a great conversion rate marketers should shoot for on social media marketing? Specifically, facebook ads?
And what’s the best way to measure the success metrics of social media campaigns?
Nicole Donnelly12:28 pm
haha conversion rate…
there are ads management companies that will tell you rates by industry for good ads
if you are doing them yourself, you’ll have a lot of learning what people respond to
Ashlee Trempus12:29 pm
which would you suggest for startups facebookads or googleadds?
Nicole Donnelly12:29 pm
we know that they respond to attractive females looking at the user and copy that has an emotional hook and tells you what you will learn
fb promotes posts are the cheapest way to start
then FB ads, then google ads
FB promoted posts
Ashlee Trempus12:29 pm
great, thank you
Nicole Donnelly12:30 pm
it’s key that you know what you want people to do, do you want them to buy or sign up for an email list
Nick Hughes12:30 pm
Ok. But like for clock through rates vs impressions is there a metric we should shoot for realistically?
Nicole Donnelly12:30 pm
those will be the metrics that you track
Nick Hughes12:30 pm
Click through*
Nicole Donnelly12:30 pm
Nick, not really
it varies sooooooooo much
by audience and industry
if you get 1% you are winning
Howard Chiu12:30 pm
My experience is that 1% conversion rate would be great for a first post.
Nicole Donnelly12:30 pm
and some get 30%
Ashlee Trempus12:30 pm
click through doesn’t necessarily mean sales right?
Nicole Donnelly12:30 pm
right
Nicole Donnelly12:31 pm
it just means they clicked your ad
then they need to convert on your site
so you need to be super clear in the ad about what people can expect on your site
and have an attractive female looking at the user
Nick Hughes12:31 pm
Got it. Basically start and keep fine tuning your campaign to improve the metrics
Nicole Donnelly12:31 pm
yes
and if it’s not working after 1K views, change it!
Nicole Donnelly12:32 pm
you should test at least 5 versions of your ad
use different images and copy and then FB will automatically put more $ to the ones that people click on, if you have it set up that way
Ashlee Trempus12:32 pm
5 versions as in target audience or as in the ad itself?
Nicole Donnelly12:32 pm
the ad itself
Team Founders Live12:32 pm
Can you talk about A/B testing? What is it and what’s the easiest way to do this on FB and Instagram?
Nicole Donnelly12:34 pm
with the FB ads manager it’s easy to set up tests, for example, I might try 3 different images and 2 same, and on the ones that are the same, I may change the copy and when I set it to run, I’ll also set it to run on IG too and then choose the option for FB to automatically put my $ towards the ad and network that gets the most action
so when we did this for Spring Seattle there was one image that did super on IG so the $ went there
FB ads manager makes that part of the process easy
Nick Hughes12:35 pm
For $$, What are the ranges of CAC when using social media ads? What’s high and too expensive CAC, and what’s a good low CAC to aim for? (Cost of customer acquisition)
Nicole Donnelly12:35 pm
this is all dependant on your COGS, cost of goods, and your budget
I can usually do a decent sized test for $100 or less
cost of acquisition varies soooooooo greatly
Ashlee Trempus12:36 pm
how often should we be posting on social media?
Nicole Donnelly12:36 pm
One of our companies had a CPA (cost per acquisition) that was over $100 and through changing her images we got that down to $17, her product cost over $100 so now she can put $ in and scale
Nicole Donnelly12:37 pm
Ashlee, posting on social media depends on the social network
Team Founders Live12:37 pm
Ashlee, here’s a previous talk from Nicole that touches on that question.
Nicole Donnelly12:37 pm
linkedin has a 72 hr news cycle
Team Founders Live12:37 pm
(Video and Q&A) – Nicole Donnelly: Understanding And Mapping Out Your Social Media Plan
This session is titled Understanding And Mapping Out Your Social Media Plan and includes Nicole talking about how to approach your social media plan, understanding your needs and requirements, and …
Nicole Donnelly12:37 pm
thansk!
Ashlee Trempus12:37 pm
thank you!
Nick Hughes12:37 pm
Nice improvement on CAc in the example. How did you do it?
Nicole Donnelly12:38 pm
with linkedin, if you don’t get traction in the first hour, take the post down and try again use different words and sometimes it’s just the time of when you put it up
we changed her images from product shots to images of attractive females looking at the user
Truth!
it’s silly and it works
Nicole Donnelly12:39 pm
her pics were also from a distance if they did feature a female
so they needed to be close up
Team Founders Live12:39 pm
Howard, what company were you promoting when you were doing social media marketing?
Nicole Donnelly12:40 pm
another cool case study had an eco make up company trying to sell into makeup related keywords, they changed their keywords and interests of audience to be Tesla related and they sold out! couldn’t keep up with sales
the people who liked tesla were in teh mindset to buy an aspirational eco product like that
they didn’t need to be interested in makeup
Nick Hughes12:40 pm
Tesla? Why do you think that made a difference?
Nicole Donnelly12:41 pm
so, think about parallels for your audience
what else do they aspire to do or be
there was virtually no competition in that space and the tesla wannabe owners could buy something that spoke to their eco values
Howard Chiu12:41 pm
My own and more focused on our core value which is eco friendly and high tech kitchenware. I’m with Nicole – try different variations of the same ad
Nicole Donnelly12:42 pm
it’s no longer B2B or B2C it’s H2H or human to human
Team Founders Live12:42 pm
Right on Howard!
Nicole Donnelly12:42 pm
so Howard, have you tried Tesla as an interest for your ads?
Team Founders Live12:42 pm
Nicole, You mentioned “like targeting” on facebook. How does this work?
Howard Chiu12:43 pm
No I haven’t Nicole. That’s a really cool suggestion!
Nicole Donnelly12:43 pm
if I have an email list of customers, I can upload that to FB and create an “audience” then you’ll be prompted to “create Like Audience” and that will create an audience of people who are like those on your list, so that you can advertise to them too and in theory that’s more like shooting fish in a barrel
Nicole Donnelly12:44 pm
you know that they fit the profile of your customer, and for some companies this will work better than others
Howard, let us know how that goes!
Team Founders Live12:44 pm
How large of list can you upload into FB?
Nicole Donnelly12:44 pm
I’m not sure, I’ve never maxed it out
Team Founders Live12:44 pm
like 5k? 50k? 100k?
Nicole Donnelly12:45 pm
some people will scrape linkedin for email addresses and use that as their base list
5k-10k is what we’ve done so far
Team Founders Live12:45 pm
Great, thanks
Team Founders Live12:46 pm
Any links of social media resources or blogs we should be following?
Nicole Donnelly12:46 pm
How to use Facebook Custom Audiences
It’s easier to sell to current customers than to look for new ones, so strengthen your existing connections by using Custom Audiences. We’ll compare your data with ours to help you find the people you know on Facebook. If you have a customer list or data from your site, like purchaser email addresses, you’re ready to get started.
The FB biz blog is great
and MOZ
Neil Patel is fantastic too
GaryV of course
Team Founders Live12:47 pm
Moz | SEO Software, Tools & Resources for Smarter Marketing
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Nicole Donnelly12:47 pm
www.saltywaffle.com is getting going again too
I love MOZ tools!
Team Founders Live12:47 pm
Home – Salty Waffle
Do you ‘favorite’ tweets you are mentioned in? Do you ‘favorite’ retweets? Do you ‘like’ your all of your FB page comments as soon as they come in? (do you even get comments?) Do you make your content evergreen? (you can do that here!) Do you feel overwhelmed just thinking about keeping up with it all?
Howard Chiu12:47 pm
Wow that’s really cool. Thanks Nicole. Following the same line of thought, the target would be on people who are interested in Tesla (or a list of Tesla owners if we can get our hands on it) plus SpaceX, Solar , etc.
Nicole Donnelly12:47 pm
yes
and if you target women, tesla may be sufficient
Team Founders Live12:48 pm
Man this went fast today. We’re almost out of time here, ANY LAST QUESTIONS?
Nicole Donnelly12:48 pm
if you get spaceX and solar, it may be more male
solar maybe not
SpaceX def
more male
howard, will you please post your site here so I can see
Nick Hughes12:48 pm
Nicole. This was awesome. Last question. What brand is doing Social well right now?
Howard Chiu12:49 pm
Going beyond customer acquisition, do you have any suggestions on 3rd party managing customer reviews on Amazon and other social media?
us.thatinventions.com
Nicole Donnelly12:49 pm
oooh that’s a great question
Nick – brands on social that are doing well, there are quite a few, depends on industry and what you are looking at what I’d recommend to have a look at
Nicole Donnelly12:50 pm
I’ll look up post a few later for you
amazon reviews are so important
Nick Hughes12:50 pm
How about entrepreneur or founder oriented?
Nicole Donnelly12:50 pm
and you do need to stay on top of them
Nick, I’d say none really in that realm
you could own it
Nick Hughes12:51 pm
👍🏼
Nicole Donnelly12:51 pm
whoever does that for you Howard has to be on it 24/7
and you should be soliciting reviews just as often
Nicole Donnelly12:52 pm
tactfully of course
and Howard, do you know about HARO?
Howard Chiu12:52 pm
That’s probably why I’ve been searching for someone who can do this the right way. May not even be 24/7
Nicole Donnelly12:52 pm
you could get some press there for sure
yeah, they’d need to check it 2-3x a day and solicit for review on a regular cadance
Howard Chiu12:52 pm
HARO? Help a reporter?
Nicole Donnelly12:52 pm
yep
Nicole Donnelly12:53 pm
I’ve gotten some good press from responding to inquiries on there, Nick and Founders Live you should be doing that too
There are a lot of relevant queries, and link backs from press are super for SEO
We can talk more about SEO next time!
Team Founders Live12:53 pm
Nice! Well we’re out of time for today. Thank you Nicole for your time and wisdom, this is great. How can we get a hold of you outside of this?
Nick Hughes12:54 pm
Yes this was great
Thanks
Nicole Donnelly12:54 pm
Nicole@saltywaffle.com
Thank you!
Howard Chiu12:54 pm
Thank you Nicole. Very informative!
Nicole Donnelly12:54 pm
😎
My pleasure Howard!
BTW Howard, lovely site! and super cool products!
Team Founders Live12:55 pm
Thanks everyone for hanging with us today. Look for our next FL Influencer Series we have tomorrow on funding and investors
Howard Chiu12:55 pm
Har har thanks. More coming!
Nick Hughes12:55 pm
See ya
Nicole Donnelly12:55 pm
Bye!
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