Converting Facebook Leads into Viable Business

Facebook is a great place to start when you want to generate business for a low(er) cost than more traditional advertising. With a bevy of campaign objectives to choose from, there are real opportunities for anyone and everyone to advertise using arguably the most popular social network in the game.

At Hyperchat Social, we definitely do have a niche in the financial industry. Did you know that our CEO is an ultra-successful financial advisor in the Atlanta area, Ted Jenkin? A lot of what we do here at Hyperchat Social is based around the way Ted himself grew his own practice.

When creating a new ad through Facebook's advertising platform, the first step is to choose your objective. An objective is basically just your goal for the campaign and Facebook has quite a few to choose from. The name of the game when it comes to growing a financial practice is lead generation - and you guessed it, Facebook's advertising platform has an objective specifically for doing so.

The lead generation objective provides the advertiser the opportunity to build out a custom form full of questions to ask potential leads. Facebook allows the marketer to select which information they would like to receive from the prospect and Facebook pulls this information directly from the user's profile. This makes the process extremely easy for social media users to input their information to decrease the chances of the prospect clicking off the page.

On the other hand, a lead from Facebook is useless if you are unable to convert that lead into a viable business for your company or brand. We have gathered our top tips for converting those leads into business and how to get the most out of your marketing dollars.

#1: Set Yourself Up For Success

The first step to converting leads from Facebook into a viable business is setting yourself up for success from the beginning. In this case, the beginning is effectively setting up your advertising campaign.

When creating lead generation campaigns that convert, there are several factors that come into play. From the graphics and the copy to the budget and the schedule, an advertiser needs to be strategic when making choices for the campaign. Perhaps the most important piece of a lead generation campaign on Facebook is the form itself.

The ability to select which information you would like to know about the user taps your call-to-action is one that should not be taken lightly. Getting strategic with these questions is one way to increase the overall quality of information you end up getting out of your ad dollars. Facebook allows you to ask questions in the form of two types of questions.

Form fills with demographic information from the user's profile: This includes name, contact information, and address. This category is super easy for the user to fill out because the questions populate with answers taken from the user's profile. Custom Questions: Custom questions are available for the marketer to create in the form of short answer, multiple-choice, conditional, appointment scheduler, and more. The marketer can get creative with the information they feel would be most useful to have about someone interested in their brand. How many questions should be on a lead form?

Producing a high performing lead form is a balancing act and the number of questions you should have on a lead form genuinely depends on your goal. This all depends on the level of buy-in the consumer has. If your goal is to collect user information from someone who is interested in your brand so you can include them in an email campaign, collecting an email address can suffice. In that case, your goal is likely quantity, rather than quality.

If your goal is to generate leads to produce more AUM for your practice, you want to ensure the lead has enough buy-in to the campaign. Asking qualifying questions can be an effective way to weed out those leads that may not be as interested. Some of our favorites to add to campaigns are:

• Would you like to schedule a consultation?
• What time of day is best to contact you?
• What area is of most concern?
• Range of investible assets - we usually provide monetary ranges for the lead to pick from.

If you want to learn more about creating successful lead generation ads, click here to read our full blog.

#2: Fine Tune Your Follow Up

Can you remember the last advertisement you clicked on social media? Probably not. Although, there was definitely something that drew you to the advertisement or else you would not have clicked it. Well, your leads are experiencing the same thing. They saw your ad that pointed out a pain point that they experience. The prospect shows interest by filling out a form. They move on with their day.

To convert a lead, you have to reach out when the pain point and the solution you provide are both fresh in their brain. For our clients, we recommend calling the lead as soon as they fill out the form. We mean as soon as the lead comes in. This practice has the highest likelihood to convert into real business.

Follow Up And Follow Up Again

More often than not, your follow up process will require more than one attempt. In the world of marketing, there is a principle called the rule of seven. This basically states than a consumer needs to hear a marketing message, on average, seven times in order to take action.

Does this mean you should call your lead seven times right away? Absolutely not. At Hyperchat, we recommend a prolonged follow-up process. We recommend call every other day for the first week, one time per week for the next three months, and one time per month from there until the meeting is set.

You can also add the lead to your CRM system, your monthly newsletters, and any active drip campaigns you have going on. All of these steps can help build up your brand awareness for the leads and increase the likelihood of closing the sale.

#3: Stay Organized and Engaged

One of the keys of fine-tuning your follow up process and closing business from Facebook is staying on top of those you have in your lead pipeline.

There are a couple of different tools we use at Hyperchat Social to stay engaged and organized with our leads. The most important of these is a program called Zapier. Currently, Facebook does not send email notifications when there is a new lead from a campaign but Zapier allows us to send an email notification to multiple people when a new prospect fills out our lead form.

Zapier also allows you to set up a trigger so that when a new lead comes in, it will automatically be added to a Google sheet.

Facebook also now has a Leads Center right in Business Manager which can double as a basic CRM system. This is where you can view any lead's generated information. You are able to set reminders to follow up with leads, assign the leads an owner, and add notes to their contact information. The tool also allows you to filter leads by category, owner, date, or label. You can even directly email leads from the Leads Center as well. It really is your go-to place for all things leads.

Ready to jump into the world of Facebook advertising but not sure where to start? Click here to schedule a free consultation and we can handle it for you and start Turning Social Into Sales.