Facebook approach with an offline business

Instead of using software shortcuts, why not build a credible FB fan page to promote your local business, share insightful content, and reach out to other local businesses on social media which cater to the same target market?

Note: I am not saying reach out to direct competitors.

Focus on reaching out to people who cater to the same audience.

Big difference.

This way there's no overlap.

You should combine 4 things to get successful in your online business. The things are -

1. A nice landing page with information which is really beneficial for the visitors.You have to have sign up form here to capture the visitors email address

2.SMM(Social Media Marketing) in a effective way.

3.Google adwords campaign with the most relevant and targeted keywords. You can target the audiences what area you want.

4. You will get genuine and interested traffic from SMM and Google adwords campaign and get emails/leads from the traffics. You have to design a sales funnel for the leads. Then your work is to send email with a certain time interval. Your email must be eye-catching, relevant and clickable subject line and exclusive offers.

I think you will be successful very soon if you go in this way.

Hello Tomocal 2010

Open a FB fan page, invite your customers to put like, convince them, perhaps giving something or offering a discount on their next purchase, to leave via an optin-page their email address; once you have built your list of do good email marketing and you'll see that your business will grow.

Make a simple website of few pages.

Create a facebook fan page.

post great things on your page and website

Buy LIKES to your facebook page using facebook advertising. Focus on getting likes from your city only for maxiumum results.

I have been doing this for my local client (doctor) and seeing good results. People contact from facebook page and some of them convert into customers.

In your offline business, are you using email marketing? If not, why?

Would you rather your leads and customers visit your facebook page and "like" you.... or lead them directly to a free offer from your business, where you can hold your online marketing trackable and accountable... and more predictable?

In order you can sell leads to local customers, you need to engage with local customers.

Here is what you can do:

1-Create a fan page with your city name in it, like 'I Love [city name]'.

2-Join all local groups like "For sale [city name]" "Buy & sell [city name]" "[city name] deals only" "craiglist
[city name]", you get the point.

3-Interact with group members and post invitations to like your page.

4-Post engaging content that eventually can get viral to grow your audience on your fan page, that are related to your audience like local events, local news, funny things that happen in your city, history pics, etc. and entice your fans to invite their friends to join the page if they are local and are proud of their city.

5-Once you have grown your audience enough, contact potential customers and say that you have a big audience of local users and if they like you to promote their business or if they'd like you to send leads.

6-Close the deal and get more business.

7-You can do this faster by running a small campaign to get fans that are not in local groups. If you are going only for local groups you will need to post the offer of your clients to get leads, but also many business owner's are doing this by themselves, so reaching those who are not in facebook groups will make your audience bigger. Despite the fact that every time you do a post on groups only a few members see it so you need to post it many times or it has to be very, very engaging.

8-Also by boosting posts you can reach thousands of local users at minimal cost.

Keep in mind that it's impossible to reach most of your fans organically and an investment to reach customers to generate leads for your clients is necessary, so include that cost in your estimate price when you talk with your clients.

Hey Tom-

It stinks you had to learn the hard way that shortcuts are not the answer anymore, but that's just how it goes. So hopefully you now know that anything you do online has to be built around quality content and legitimate conversations- anything else is a waste of time. And surprisingly, you got all this "how to" advice here and nobody bothered to mention that...even though it's 90% of Facebook marketing.

If you want to use Facebook to get new clients, then you have to look at your business from a customer's standpoint and say, "What would I want to know? What would make me click the follow button for this company?"

So you start with a promotion- "Like me on Facebook and get..." This could be a freebie, and in-store discount, a contest entry, or almost anything to capture someone's interest for 2 seconds. It's that simple...you give people a solid reason to follow you and they'll follow. That's the easy part.

The hard part is keeping those people interested. So you'll have to tell them about community events, fun stories and other things they'll have a natural interest in...everything BUT YOUR PRODUCTS. Because as soon as you try to sell on Facebook it's game over....people do not follow companies to hear sales pitches. They simply want to learn about your brand, see how your business is evolving and what you care about. That's Facebook marketing.

Then again, almost nobody here will agree with me because this is an internet marketing forum and most here are seeking quick profits with minimal effort. So building a brand the right way is the last thing on their minds...but you've already learned the hard way what cheap shortcuts get you online. So don't get sucked into the trap of trying to sell your products like they're a cheap WSO...that doesn't work for real-world businesses.

I hope that helped.