Having a vast number of followers on social media does not always mean that a business has an equal – or even close to equal number of sales. It may be that people enjoy the brand, love the content posted but do not know, or feel like making the jump towards becoming a customer. It can be hard work to translate the number of followers you have into sales. Check out our guide to converting followers into customers.
What is Target Audience?
Check your target audience is on point. This is a crucial step that many small businesses miss when they are setting out. They think that because they have new followers arriving on their socials every day that it equates to success. It is an excellent start but does not mean that they will be buying from you.
Your target audience is everyone that you believe will buy your product. These should be the same people that you target your brand to. The same as well as the people that you target your advertising, marketing and content creation towards. If all these people are the same – chances are you will be making plenty of sales.
Make the Translation
It may be that you selected a target audience for your product, but it translated incorrectly when you reached out for followers.
Let’s see an example to make it clear what we are discussing here;
Your Product and Target Audience
Imagine you sell trendy home décor. It is aimed at young couples and families. People buying their first homes who want something extra special as a talking point in their lounge or kitchen. It is bright and fun. You use primary colours that stand out. Your company uses a minimalist style and ethically sourced materials for your products. You source them from around the world, from craft markets and makers and each piece is one of a kind.
You create a great brand and a logo from a logo maker that fits it perfectly. All your market research says that your customers love your products and your brand styling.
Your Socials and Target Audience
Select the social networks that will harbour the majority of your target audience. In this case it is probably Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Now you start releasing content that is aimed at your audience. Your Facebook might be full of shares about the latest news you deem relevant. Like new authors, fashion magazines and minimalist artists. Maybe photoshop classics and posts from groups you follow that have interesting content. Maybe you post your blog here in which you answer questions about your travels as you source these items. On Instagram, perhaps you post reels and story posts that contain funny memes and bright, stylized content and share images to your wall from other companies and brands doing the same as you but with different styles. You have some images of your products and links to your shop and website. Your Twitter might be the place you get a little more political in the hope that this will appeal to your target audience as they are of a political age.
You do both these things you get a huge following of over 3000 people but still, you have no major increase in your sales trend.
Why?
Your preliminary target audience and the audience that you are getting are not the same. You have missed a link here and it is so difficult a lot of the time to see where.
How to Fix it:
Looking at the socials and target audience section, it seems as though you are all set. This is not the case. You have an audience that is interested in reading your content and values your posts. But who is not in the market for buying products. You can leave it as is, but start creating more product-themed content. Post professional product pictures and reviews. Change your blog to have links to your site and collaborate with others to post new ideas. Include content about relevant home décor trends and content that links in with and supports the value of your product.
Following this advice should help your business take the steps forward that it needs to start appealing to the audience that will be willing to pay you for your products.
Byline: Annie Moody