MENA leadership style better for teamwork?

Just hit the 'Buy Now' button!

We continue to share advice by our colleague and small business expert, Melinda Emerson. After a chance meeting with her three years ago, she has been a regular contributor to this magazine. Her pearls of wisdom are worth considering as they can open our eyes to the importance of keeping up with the latest sales and marketing trends. This is often difficult for small businesses, as every waking hour can be spent focusing on the day-to-day tasks, risking missing what's hot in the world of small businesses and online traders.

It stands to reason that the more places you sell your products, the more you will sell, right? In addition to selling products on your own e-commerce website1, it may be advantageous to pursue online marketplaces like Facebook, Amazon, or Etsy where you can also sell your products through social media. With more than 1.5 billion users on Facebook, finding customers could be a serious boon for your company with the right strategy in place. People who might not otherwise have found your e-commerce website can stumble upon you through Facebook posts and ads and end up being life-long customers. And if you have your offer set up to instantly close a sale, the fact that people don’t have to leave Facebook to make a purchase makes them even more inclined to buy from you. Facebook rolled out a Buy Now button feature a few years ago, and it’s picking up some momentum. However, relatively few businesses are taking advantage of using it, which is nothing but good news for you! Setting up a Facebook store is easy, too, so there’s really no downside to doing it.

Start with Your Facebook Page

You won’t be able to sell products on Facebook without setting up a Fan Page for your business2, so if you don’t yet have one, get one. Naturally, the more followers you have on your page, the more successful your selling efforts will be. So work on that first.

Get Your Store Set Up

Then, you’ll want to set up a Shop on your page. If you use an e-commerce platform like Shopify, you can easily add on their Facebook Store service3, which will integrate with your existing sales tools. Now, there are a few options for how you can reach people with your store. Anyone who visits and Likes your Facebook Page can buy from your store simply by clicking on the Store icon at the top of your feed. There are some apps you can use to direct sell on Facebook too. Beetailer, Connect your existing e-store to Beetailer to sell on Facebook. It offers a wizard will guide you through the process. You can customise the Facebook version of your store through an easy-to-use interface. For example, you can show only a certain subset of your products. It’s free up to 30 products, and when customers want to check out they are directed back to your existing shopping cart. A pro account is $40 per month. SoldSie, If you don’t want to create a separate store try the SoldSie app. It allows you to sell directly through your Facebook messages and posts. You just upload a photo, price and sale description and then schedule your event. At the specified time, the item will appear on your Facebook page as any message. Your follower’s comment to buy, and then SoldSie manages inventory and billing. They fully integrate with Shopify.com.

Promoting Your Offerings

Facebook Ads: You can try Facebook Ads4, which puts an ad with a “Buy Now” button into the feed (or on the side of it) of exactly the target audience you’re trying to reach. It’s a fairly cost effective way to reach a wider, and specific target audience. The key to suggest is testing 35- ads for the first week of your campaign and using the click-thru rates to narrow your campaign to the best two ads. You may find that a modest investment in Facebook ads could really boost sales, as more people than would normally visit your Page see your landing page.

1 http://succeedasyourownboss.com/ start-run-grow-ecommerce-store/ 2 http://succeedasyourownboss.com/how-do-youget-more-likes-on-your-facebook-fan-page/ 3 http://succeedasyourownboss.com/ start-run-grow-ecommerce-store/ 4 http://succeedasyourownboss.com/7-ways-tocompete-for-your-target-audience-with-facebookads/