Digital marketing has changed the way we think about the sales funnel—yet many of the lessons we’ve learned from the digital space are easily applicable to brick and mortar retailers. Indeed, a good digital sales funnel can actually bring in some foot traffic and increase sales. Here’s a few tips for how local businesses can build their sales funnel using Facebook.
- Install Facebook Pixel on your website/blog. Make sure you’re tracking the folks who visit your online assets, and following up with them as they continue down their consumer journey.
- Blog about local events. Simple example: If you run a burger and beer joint, blog about local food or beer festivals. Just make sure your blog content is 100% unique, and that it’s fully localized.
- Share your post. Once you complete that localized blog post, share it widely—using social media, Google posts, email newsletters, etc. On social media, make sure to tap into the power of good localized or event-specific hashtags, as well. Tag all vendors of the event to piggyback their following and traffic.
- Promote your posts. It’s worth pitching in a few bucks to boost your post on Facebook and Instagram, which will help you get more exposure. Just be sure you change your settings so that the boosted posts only show up to local (No sense in promoting a local event to people halfway across the country.)
- Create offers related to these events. Maybe you have a special sale on beer/burgers to coincide with the food festival. Even if your business isn’t participating in the festival, this can still be a good way to tap into that reservoir of enthusiasm.
- Use your retargeting options to send your offers/coupons to people who have visited your website. This is where having Pixel installed will make a world of difference. First, make sure the offer is really good—as good as you can afford to make it. For example, you can give free drinks or appetizers to attendees of the local food festival if they bring in their ticket stub then, you create an ad that caters to them but the ad should only target those individuals that read your blog post about that event previously, and that is why we installed a Facebook Pixel; to track the visitors. After they click on your ad, make sure you request email addresses before showing the offer—a good way to build your email list for future remarketing. Again, make sure the offer is only shown to those who visit your blog post about that specific event—that’s where Facebook Pixel comes in. And, make it time-sensitive—something that’s expiring within a few days will create a sense of urgency.
And that’s it—a simple yet effective Facebook strategy to piggyback off local events and bring more interested buyers into your brick and mortar location.
