(Strategy) Define, identify, and set the priorities.
The best definition I’ve ever heard for “strategy” was given by Jim Mattis, the former 4-star general of the U.S. Marines. He states “Strategy can be defined as setting priorities”. So start with reviewing some of the items I’ve outlined below to figure out where may be a good place to start your social media campaign to get started in building your strategy.
Campaigns
“Marketing campaigns are organized, strategized efforts to promote a specific company goal, such as raising awareness of a new product or capturing customer feedback. They typically aim to reach consumers in a variety of ways and involve a combination of media, including but not limited to email, print advertising, television or radio advertising, pay-per-click, and social media.” –Hubspot 2019
Establishing advertising goals
Branding
Social media branding is about consistently using the right methods and relevant channels to engage with your target audience on social media platforms. Being careful to send the right message, to the right people, at the right times. The aim or purpose in this focus is to boost brand awareness; top funnel.
Acquisition
New customer acquisition was pretty tough in the old days of marketing. Today’s marketers can now use audience data to identify the customers they want to acquire with precision, and then use a strategic mix of social media platforms to engage them directly with personalized and relevant content. Not to mention the ability to automate to further personalize the experience.
Nurturing
Seed nurturing feeds prospect curiosity by providing the information they want without forcing them to hunt for it. This happens best when you: Segment Social Media Campaigns – Use social media to listen to your prospects and gauge the level of interest and buying intent.
Retention
Customer retention is more than just customer care. It’s also about being relevant and useful, anticipating needs and delivering on brand promises. We can also build upon the relationship with customers by interacting with their posts with a ‘like’, or by replying to their messages online, telling them how much we appreciate their input, or addressing their concerns or other pain points.
Upsell/Cross-Sell
We need to empathize with the customer and understand what “success” means to them, and then to develop a plan that would deliver this ‘win’ for them. If we know what our customer values and where the customer wants to go, then we can identify areas where additional products and services can help down the line. If we pull a record from a database of people that have children to which we can help provide student loans for, perhaps we can upsell that member a Student Visa card or Student Checking.
Pain Points
A pain point is a specific problem that customers of your business are experiencing. Like any problem, customer pain points are as diverse and varied as your members themselves. In the context of these pain points, we must work to observe, orient, decide, and then from a developed plan of strategy, execute the plan of action to the pain points that our partners are dealing with.
Dependent on what the pain points or other issues that our partners are dealing with, and in the context of Social Media, we build campaigns, and unique but highly creative/personal journeys that will take the partners’ customers from the genesis of their journey, to the purchase/conversion phase of the funnel.
