From a fundamental ‘10,000 foot’ perspective, social media increases sales by influencing transactional behaviour. This is achieved by using paid and organic social media marketing strategies to:
- Increase customer lifetime value AKA frequency of visits (the number of times a customer buys from you in their lifetime)
- Increase brand/product awareness (reach wider markets, or make more consumers aware of your venue or offering)
- Increase average sale value (increase the amount consumers spend each time they purchase from you)
How do I increase Frequency Of Visits and Customer Lifetime Value?
Increasing frequency of visits and customer lifetime value using social media is achieved by:
- Retaining mindshare (your venue remains ‘front of mind’ as the place to visit),
- Increasing awareness of your specific products or services (your drinks/food/entertainment remain ‘front of mind’), and
- Nurturing existing customers to re-purchase (offer incentives to visit, revisit, bring friends).
Strategies to increase Frequency of Visits and Customer Lifetime Value include:
- Invite existing patrons to connect with you on social media. Offer them an incentive to follow you. This could be a free share plate or something containing social value (exclusivity).
- Conduct ‘high-engagement’ organic social media marketing strategies such as content curating, value-provision and the discussion of common passions. This will contribute to mindshare and will help persuade customers to re-purchase.
- Share your Community Value Proposition and social profile URLs on till dockets/tax invoices/menus.
- Use your customer database to invite existing customers to your social profiles. Convince and convert them with ‘high-engagement’ organic social media marketing strategies.
- Lever positive comments from other followers as ‘social proof’. In Facebook, create ‘sponsored posts’ with posts containing praise or positive comments from existing customers.
How do I increase Purchase Value?
Increasing average purchase value using social media is achieved by persuading customers to purchase
- Items of higher value , or
- Multiple items per transaction.
Strategies to increase purchase value include:
- Promote awareness of items of higher value (or multiple items in ‘package deals’) via paid social media advertising, or via organic social media marketing strategies (although as a general rule, don’t promote or sell too heavily through organic social media marketing). An example of this is premium Champagne or 2-for-1 deals.
- Promote functions or ‘bring a group of friends’ deals via paid social media advertising, or via organic social media marketing strategies.
- Capture warm leads on a Facebook lead-capture page (name and email address) as an entry to a sales funnel that promotes your items of higher value.
Use social communications to ‘convince and convert’ your followers. Use social media to (a) inspire consumers to visit and open their wallets and (b) help overcome any conscious or subconscious mental ‘roadblocks’ that may be preventing consumers from purchasing from your venue.
Learn more:
Increased frequency of visits/customer lifetime value, awareness and purchase value is obtained by executing paid social media advertising campaigns (Step 9 of this Action Plan), and conducting organic community engagement strategies (Step 8 of this Action Plan).
See the Daily Social Media Management Manual for organic social media marketing tactics for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest.