Social media is more than cat memes. Used properly, it can help you achieve goals at any stage of the marketing funnel. In this post, we look tips and tricks from Ray Rahmati of Spredfast on how banks and credit unions can use social media for lead gen.
Marketing tactics can fall into two buckets: pull and push marketing. Historically, banks have used push marketing to drive leads. Technology made deploying push tactics (email, direct mail, and cold calls) easier, and so consumers were flooded by constant interruptions.
By listening and publishing valuable content through social media, you transition to "pull marketing." These tactics allow customers to self-identify, meaning the leads are warmer and will convert at a higher rate.
Banks and credit unions can use social media to find leads for any of their products. Consider someone looking for an auto loan: by posting content around cars or setting up listening for terms like "new car," or "dream car," you'll identify people who have demonstrated demand. You can follow up in helpful ways that will build trust and bring the consumer closer to your institution.
LinkedIn is the usual answer, but Ray points out that the first question in developing any social media strategy is determining who constitutes your target audience. Each social media channel resonates with a demographic. Once you understand your target audience and the channels they use, you can trace their journey through the sales funnel and identify opportunities to help them with content.
Determining campaign goals should be your priority. From there, build personas on your prospect customers. Having clear personas will allow you to walk through the buyer journey and understand content gaps that you can fill. It will also let you know what channels will be most effective in connecting with your prospects. Remember, different personas will react with products in different ways. They will also be using different channels and engage with different types of content. As an example, first-time home buyers will have different questions than those looking to purchase an investment property. One might use YouTube and look for quick engaging videos on common factors in loan approval, and one might be a Pinterest users who wants an infographic detailing home inspections.
Consumers have access to more information than ever, which means they're doing their homework before making a purchase decision. The hurdle is cutting through the wealth of information. Being human and unique, as well as informative, allows your message to cut through the clutter.
Another way to cut through the noise is to use paid ads. Test messages by posting them organically and watching for traction. When a post is successful, convert that post into a promoted post or ad. By using this testing method, you can find effective messages and deliver them to specific audiences for a low cost.
Lead scoring is a process of indicating how ready a prospect is to purchase. When using social media for lead gen, actions such as liking or retweeting could be weighted more lightly than clicking on a link. In order to effectively score leads, you'll need to build measurement into your campaigns. Using If This Then That (IFTTT) to automate the tracking of engagements, and Google Analytics to track link clicks and page traffic. Scoring can be as simple as using an excel document to track users and then assigned weighted scores based on action. Set a threshold score that will indicate to your team that it is time to engage the customer in a more targeted way.
Lead scoring is an important start when using social media for lead gen, but it isn't the only useful metric. In proving the ROI of your campaign, you'll want to determine conversion rates. From there, you can use the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers to determine the value of your piece of content.
For example, let's say your customers have a lifetime value of $100. 3% of people who visit your website convert into customers ($100 * .03 = $3.00). This means that every customer who visits your website is worth $3.00. You write a blog post explaining the need for your product. 50% of people who read this blog post go to your website. ($3.00 * .50 = $1.50). Every visitor who reads your blog is worth $1.50. If you have 300 blog views, then the blog is worth $450.
A theme in this article has been understanding the high volume of information available to consumers. Targeting a very specific message to a very specific audience helps you to cut through the noise. It also ensures cost-effectiveness in your campaign. Delivering your message to anyone but the intended audience wastes money and adds to the noise -- causing consumers to tune you out. In digital marketing, you can target off of demographics, psychographics, or both.
The best trick in lead gen is to let others do the work for you! Word-of-mouth marketing allows you to be more effective with less effort. When a consumer is spreading your message, they grant you access to a new audience in an authentic and authoritative way. Setting up and powering this system takes some initial work, like encouraging reviews through Yelp, Facebook, and Google My Business.
After this Twitter chat, we asked Ray a few more questions about how to enact the tactics discussed. Here is what he had to say:
According to WOMMA, word of mouth marketing drives $2 Trillion in US sales annually. Social allows Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) at scale. WOM and peer recommendations are extremely powerful as people trust their network well over brands.
Make it easy, and give customers a reason to share your content or their experience with your bank. Leverage your most important asset – your employees. Employees can be your strongest advocate and driver of WOM. My colleague recently posted steps for building a powerful Employee Advocacy program http://bit.ly/2gguH3J
You should absolutely balance lead gen with general content. Two rules to follow are the 80/20 and 4-1-1 rules. 80/20 Rule: 20% of content is promotional/sales focused; 80% that interests and engages your audience in conversation. 4-1-1 Rule: for every 1 sales/marketing tweet, retweet 1 relevant tweet and share 4 pieces of content written by others.
The biggest mistake I see is banks not understanding that the way people engage with the brand (and buy) has changed. Set aside tactical and transactional aspects of social and focus on solving customers' and members problems first. Another mistake is not managing internal expectations. Banks shouldn’t expect a jump in new loan apps after every tweet. Like any other marketing strategy, social lead gen takes time. It takes trial and error, and it takes patience.
The lines of responsibility and accountability in social for banks continues to blur. Regulators continue to have a watchful eye. In my opinion, there are a couple key areas where banks should be diligent as it relates to social lead generation. The first is the use of deceptive advertisements to generate leads. Do NOT use unsubstantiated representations of products. The second is the secure collection and transfer of customer data. Consumer harm is the #1 area of concern for regulators. When in doubt, engage your legal and compliance team.
Customers who engage with companies on social spend on average 20-40% more than customers who do not (Bain & Company). Additionally, there are hundreds of potential customers struggling to make sense of financial products. The opportunity is massive. Change your mantra from “always be selling” to “Always be helping” and the leads will generate themselves.
To learn more about Ray, follow him on Twitter. You can also learn more about all things Social Media by exploring all the resources available from Spredfast.
