Where to next? Expansion advice.
I started an online outdoors themed website a few years back as a hobby based on an email list I had created. In 2012 I created social media presences on FB and then a year or two later, Instagram. At the same time I started offering decals, hats and shirts for sale.
Thru organic word of mouth and target marketing I've grown the social media accounts to around 50k each (100k total followers) plus smaller twitter and pinterest accounts and get terrific participation from our fans on what we post.
For the most part we've been very selective on how much promo we do for our products and services. I do see orders each time we post to social media but we also lose people when we try straight promotional posts. I think this is in part b/c our audience enjoys the LACK of "selling" that is so prevalent on these mediums. We've tried different contest type promotions but I feel it's not really generated much in sales compared to the effort and cost of goods given away. We post everyday something of interest and it seems to work great for participation and new fans.
Advertising on these is extremely expensive vs. the conversion and my feeling is people don't like to "leave" FB or Instagram for a website. The e-commerce carts (we have one) that offer FB sales I think are clunky and not conducive to a good user experience. Social Media has been great for building a dedicated audience but not so much in converting them to sales.
On the paid search front I've tried Google Adwords (keyword & display networks) and most recently Bing and have found the traffic/clicks to be entirely too expensive for the conversion, neither engine has been effective.
The products designs are unique, priced correctly and have a huge pool of potential customers. We receive rave reviews (and sales) when people become aware of the products so I know there is a huge potential here based on the sales to date and feedback. We have a HUGE amount of repeat business.
I guess my question is what is the best method(s) to reach MORE people either in targeted web traffic or other means? I am at a bit of a loss as I figured at this point the social media would drive the sales once it reached a certain point. This has been the case in the sense that it's taken us this far but I'd like to take it to the next level and the effort we are putting into social media now I don't see it growing sales more than it does. Unless...I'm missing something?
What suggestions do you have?
Thru organic word of mouth and target marketing I've grown the social media accounts to around 50k each (100k total followers) plus smaller twitter and pinterest accounts and get terrific participation from our fans on what we post.
For the most part we've been very selective on how much promo we do for our products and services. I do see orders each time we post to social media but we also lose people when we try straight promotional posts. I think this is in part b/c our audience enjoys the LACK of "selling" that is so prevalent on these mediums. We've tried different contest type promotions but I feel it's not really generated much in sales compared to the effort and cost of goods given away. We post everyday something of interest and it seems to work great for participation and new fans.
Advertising on these is extremely expensive vs. the conversion and my feeling is people don't like to "leave" FB or Instagram for a website. The e-commerce carts (we have one) that offer FB sales I think are clunky and not conducive to a good user experience. Social Media has been great for building a dedicated audience but not so much in converting them to sales.
On the paid search front I've tried Google Adwords (keyword & display networks) and most recently Bing and have found the traffic/clicks to be entirely too expensive for the conversion, neither engine has been effective.
The products designs are unique, priced correctly and have a huge pool of potential customers. We receive rave reviews (and sales) when people become aware of the products so I know there is a huge potential here based on the sales to date and feedback. We have a HUGE amount of repeat business.
I guess my question is what is the best method(s) to reach MORE people either in targeted web traffic or other means? I am at a bit of a loss as I figured at this point the social media would drive the sales once it reached a certain point. This has been the case in the sense that it's taken us this far but I'd like to take it to the next level and the effort we are putting into social media now I don't see it growing sales more than it does. Unless...I'm missing something?
What suggestions do you have?
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