The Sad Truth About Social Media

Just as an experiment, today I quickly found dozens of Warriors suggesting social media (SM) sites (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, etc) as the best source of leads and traffic in answer to various threads dealing with how to get traffic to my site, how to advertise my product, where's the best place to market, where to get subscribers, etc, etc.

These SM responses were being given left and right even by newbie Warriors that aren't currently marketing anything. It seems lately that everyone assumes social media is always the best place to do IM.

My reason for this thread is to let you all know that social media may be a comparatively inexpensive place to market, but is it really giving you good solid leads, and is it converting into sales? In some specialized markets it may well be the best alternative . . . but have you ever considered that in your market, there may be better places to spend your advertising dollars?

In my own experience, email marketing to a targeted list is nearly always a better source of sales than social media leads - and by a wide margin. It is a more cost effective use of marketing dollars.

But I don't have a list, you say. Well, did you ever stop to consider that someone else might have a list in your niche? Would they be willing to mail for you? Have you ever asked? When you do email marketing you get the "implied" endorsement of the list owner (even if that owner doesn't specifically give you that endorsement in the offer copy) which is a sales booster.

Here's another source of marketing leads that can work very well: highly targeted rented mailing lists.

These lists are built on things like niche magazine subscriptions. They can be very targeted and typically the list members are credit card buyers in the niche. Some of these niche lists are huge (1 million + names). Have you ever looked into this strategy? You should. Here is just one place to begin: Nextmark

Here's another source of highly targeted leads that I rarely see mentioned in the forum: authority web sites in your niche. Many times you can do a mailing through these sites. Sometimes they will also let you put your domain URL or your banner on their site if you don't directly compete with their similar products or services. Often they will accept joint venture projects in an effort to increase their own reach. It is a must that you have a great niche site yourself, or a very valuable niche product to sell. But is there a better source of buying niche leads than that which comes from niche authority sites? Sometimes these sites don't advertise the fact that they will sell you some site space or do a JV with you - you have to ask. Some "portal" niche sites may even give you a URL link for free. Authority sites are always on the lookout for high quality partners.

I can tell you through much experience that social media is not always the best answer nor is it the most cost effective. What good are thousands of SM leads if they don't convert? You'll never know until you conduct your own tests.

Steve