How to attract more customers for your SMMA (Social Media Marketing Agency)?

      How to attract more customers for your SMMA (Social Media Marketing Agency)?

      When dealing with the creation of a lucrative Social Media Marketing Agency, sales will be your main asset.

      Of course, this is relevant for any business.

      Nevertheless, as I've seen, lots of businessmen appear and disappear in the above-mentioned industry, I've spotted the most common pattern for unsuccessful agencies: insufficient sales.

      Sales are very important

      If you're looking for such a term as "internet business" in social networks, you'll probably see an advertisement for SMMA. Users start to believe that they can receive huge profits from possessing a Social Media Marketing Agency.

      As well any internet business, it's not so simple.

      Lots of persons can't work out how to attract more customers, not to mention starting the business.

      Don't misunderstand us: the sales training is included in the majority of SMMA courses. Another possibility is to get on the Internet and find some free tutorials.

      Remember that sales are the most important part of Social Media Marketing Agency. Before you pay a tidy sum for the SMMA course, you should take a look at the selling process.

      If you're able to provide sales, you will probably earn much money on SMMA. If you suggest that sales will be difficult for you, you're initially doomed to defeat. Of course, sales are something that can be trained; however, true traders are very rare.

      Under the bonnet of SMMA

      Before proceeding to the sales part, we should take a look at the SMMA business model.

      As well as any advertising agency, SMMA consists of experts. You must have at least one specialist in establishing efficient social media materials and advertisements. Keep in mind that Facebook and Instagram are the main objectives due to the potential coverage and return on investment.

      It's not too difficult to create a great advertisement. Nevertheless, as policies, regulations, and frameworks change continuously, a specialist in this field is always necessary. Campaigns and accounts get closed constantly, so collaborating with a person familiar with the environment is very important. 

      And that's the difficulty!

      Many people distant from the SMMA believe that the enterprise owner is the ad specialist. However, that's not true. Most of them are well versed in social media. Nevertheless, they prefer to recruit specialists as subcontractors to perform the technical job. It reminds me of a restaurant. Its director doesn't have to be a chef. On many occasions, owners of the Social Media Marketing Agency also perform the functions of social networking specialists to reduce expenses. But managing such agency and initiating various campaigns for customers can become too difficult.

      So what are the main functions of the owner?

      Task #1 For the owners of Social Media Marketing Agency

      If they employ a subcontractor to place and improve advertisements, an owner's function is easy: to provide sales. Nothing else. Actually, attracting customers would be another important challenge, but it can be automated by means of a video and an interactive form.

      During my research, I firstly only concentrated on the mechanical aspects of Facebook advertisements. However, it doesn't actually matter if you don't have anyone to make the advertisements for. And frankly, no one can achieve amazing results at the very beginning of the journey.

      It was a mistake to try to wait for the excellent results for potential customers when everything we had was a few thematic pieces of research made and inexperienced employees. That wasn't enough. 

      Our decision was to stop examining Facebook advertisements and employ a real specialist. I talked to many first-class social media specialists about paid advertisements and found a few true professionals with the necessary experience. We paid about 50% of the retainer. It looked like business cooperation until we found out how the finances actually worked in this type of agency. Nowadays, the split is approximately 70/30 (however, the workers can get extra bonuses for hard work).

      After the first several customers, we believed everything was going great. Customers would receive about 1,000% "returns on ad spends" and plenty of new enterprises. However, you don't know that the customers don't always stay for the fee you prescribed (usually half a year with a remuneration/discount to remain).

      If you lose a few customers, it's a significant negative impact on your profit. For this reason, the task of the agency proprietor is to attract new customers. You can always employ more advertising experts if necessary.

      Main reasons for the closure of SMMAs

      This leads us to the most difficult part of managing an SMMA. That where lots of potential owners lose interest and go out of the business for good. Things like that occur every day. Following are the three models of SMMA collapse:

      1. Fear of abandonment and failure. — All of us are afraid of hearing no's day by day. You have to develop a strong character to compete in trading, and some persons are too vulnerable for it. At the start, you call about a hundred persons a day to get a presentation appointment. The most effective strategy is to avoid selling your service over the phone. However, you should discuss potential sales outcomes for the customers on the basis of your custom studies. All the sales, information, and concept testing occurs during a longer private meeting. Therefore, prospecting calls last no more than two minutes. Nevertheless, each refusal sums up, and it's defeating.

      2. Absence of appropriate sales trainings — There are more sales trainings than fish it the sea, and most of them are simple frauds. Nevertheless, there are a few real pearls out there that are worth the price. Actually, sales fall within the scope of communication psychology. So, you should be a pretty good judge of character in order to enhance sales volumes.

      3. SMMA is not good for beginners. Some persons are introverts by nature. Although a few of them become successful in this area, most of them don't since there are endless relations with unfamiliar people. You must serve the customers, call a few hundreds of persons weekly, and hold a speech on creating businesses with social media advertisements. These are your tasks. Even though it can stimulate some introverts and encourage them to talk when necessary, that's not the perfect option for them. Moreover, some persons believe that controlling an agency is not what they imagined. 

      So, are you sure you'll be able to overcome all of these obstacles to increase sales?

      What should the best SMMA owners do?

      There are several options for helping the proprietors of SMMA to manage sales. Following are three things the best sellers do to attract more customers:

      First, they undertake to make calls every single day (desirably over the phone). If you called more than fifty persons a day during a month just to gain experience in the interaction with strangers, you'd certainly improve your social skills (provided you modify your conversations using the customer feedback).

      We recommend you to answer the following questions.

      1. What brought you income and what didn't?
      2. What was well received by the clients?
      3. What are the things don't you have to say?
      4. Which tone of voice is the most appropriate?
      5. Is it better to make calls in the morning or in the evening?

      There are many issues to reconfigure when you engage in sales and consider the entire process from a scientific point of view will certainly improve it.

      Second, delegate some responsibilities to others. This is a widespread practice for the most progressive sellers. Such workers use their current network to send them pre-selected prospects.

      Below is a brief list of networks available to most users: LinkedIn Contacts, Facebook Contacts, Email Lists, Former Co-Workers, etc.

      In case your lists are filled with mostly weak linkages, leverage the network lists of your family and friend.

      It is simple to put your lists in order.

      You just meet with your acquaintances, like, and trust. You find out what they've done recently, and you realize what their perfect client looks like. After that, you should do the same for your enterprise. Finally, you find prospective customers for each other. Stick to the principle, "return the favor." 

      The main task here is to have your contact call the prospective customers before you reach out. This is known as a "favorable introduction." They can briefly share some information and let other people know you've worked with them before. In some cases, it doesn't work out, but you should give it a try.

      Some users don't like to receive unexpected calls or emails. I've seen lots of unsuccessful business patterns.

      Nevertheless, if the person I trust does understand my business and actually believe some stranger can increase its efficiency, I'll be glad to answer his/her call.

      That's how the empires were built.

      We all prefer to purchase services from whom the sellers we know or trust — unless we are in desperate need of something. An effective introduction tactic is very important. To achieve success, you should get to know someone who has good connections can introduce you to someone else.

      It will work out, I promise.

      Third, employ a business-trainer. Be sure to learn from the experts who achieved things you want to achieve.

      Model of success: it's very easy.

      If they've walked in your shoes, they probably know the most widespread ways to fail at selling in your sphere. However, they also know the best ways to achieve success. You don't have to waste your time in an attempt to reinvent the wheel. Therefore, sales training should be on your list of daily activities. 

      But the trap is that a lot of sales courses are misled and inappropriate.

      Alleged "sales experts"

      Many popular sales experts sale the plans that may not work for you. After all, "sales training" is not a scientific term and can't fit anyone. However, something has to work out.

      Sales trainings should have three main qualities: efficiency, flexibility, and ethics. Sales system must actually improve sales. Training schedule must be flexible to save our time and money. Finally, sales recommendations must not be too slick for you.

      So, what's the best place to get sales training for your Social Media Marketing Agency?

      Learn from the coaches you feel good with and trust. Be careful when choosing.

      In the process of sales of training, you should concentrate on the basic principles and make sure that they are in line with your company values and objectives. You'll sort out all the small things later during the practice.

      It can take a while to learn, but the good thing is that the difficulties of SMMA sales are easy to overcome. The key to successful SMMA sales is to choose the right learning platforms and coaches with excellent results.

      For instance, to get to governing bodies, you should use LinkedIn. A short while ago, I found a company that undergoes my 3 E's test. This company has prepared and training on how to attract SMMA customers from LinkedIn constantly. As getting customers isn't easy, that's an excellent option.

      Top-notch Lead Sourcing

      To gain an advantage, you should look at how you qualify your potential clients. Many business owners waste a lot of time contacting the prospects that can't afford your services. We have learned SMMAs to establish up to ten criteria for their perfect customer. These factors are put on the electronic table. You can employ cheap workforce on Upwork to carry out this task. It is known as "Lead Sourcing." Draw up a quality list of enterprises to call by preliminarily qualifying them first.

      In our opinion, a perfect customer should bring an income of about $20.000 per month. They also have to be located near your company, so you should consider only the nearest towns. Their webpage shouldn't have a Facebook pixel.

      Other positive indications are that they don't have fresh advertisements on their business Facebook Page. If they don't have one but are considered a large business, it's a great selling point for your services. You should also explore their Instagram account to determine the number of their followers and engagement, particularly if they offer visual services or goods (fitness rooms, houses, retail products, etc.). Lack of Instagram activity could be a brilliant opportunity to discuss with them.

      Each selection criterion brings you closer to discovering a top-quality lead. Making approximate estimations of the average sale is a perfect criterion. Theoretically, this figure should be close to $500. If they make advertisements on conventional media, this is a good omen. In my opinion, they waste a huge sum on print materials or TV ads. In addition, on Facebook, they just get more impact on their perfect and goal-oriented market. Another advice is to review their Google Business page. If you can see only several reviews. That's a sign that they might require social media marketing service as well.

      There are many other factors to take into account when making a lead sourcing list. Nevertheless, the list of things I've mentioned above is the basis. Moreover, most SMMA proprietors have found that although leads comply with their main criteria, they still have to take another step forward.

      SMMA Lead Scoring

      I've found a problem with the main internet sales funnels when I had an elite property customer. My customer's aim was to pre-rent chic units from edifices that were still unfinished. I found out that they spent much marketing money to attract new tenants (CoCA): more than $3500 per sale. This seemed too much, but their year-long rental brought more than $80.000 a year per unit.

      The customer's purpose was to attract enough concerned parties to pass through the sales funnel and get out concluding contracts. However, it's not as easy as it seems. That's when I found out that even within the funnel, there were pre-qualifying characteristics, and that would identify the best types of customers.

      Since that, we have begun to incorporate the idea of Lead Scoring into our high-profile customers and our own enterprise. Unfortunately, this was a new concept for me several years ago. Lead Scoring means that you identify the optimal leads on the basis of the chosen criteria, promptness, and trust. For instance:

      1. Is the client local?
      2. Have they visited some of your events or checked a unit?
      3. What websites did they visit?
      4. Was the user a man or a woman? Who handles the family budget?

      All these factors accumulate and become top-priority in your lead scoring system. That's why my real estate customers spent so much on attracting customers. They didn't want a main list generated by placing several targeted video advertisements on Facebook. They required more commitment and involvement to land the clients.

      The highest leads are definitely the best and have the highest likelihood of working with you.

      If you receive many leads that lead nowhere and you trade high-class items, you definitely require lead scoring. It takes extra time and expenses, but that's another task that can be delegated and automated using lead scoring programs. When you save up enough money, incorporate it as soon as possible.

      How to facilitate the selling process?

      All this information may sound scary to the new owners of the social media marketing agency. However, you shouldn't know that it really gets easier with time. After finishing your thematic studies and forming your customer base, you will perform different tasks.

      At the start, 3/4 of your time will be devoted to the outright sales.

      Nevertheless, if you delegate some responsibilities, you can spend most of the time upgrading business systems and waste less time on net sales.

      It was such a privilege to observe the early development of SMMA. We have definitely learned many things and had multiple failures. However, to date, a large share of enterprise development is merely collecting recommendations from happy customers. It has been a long time since our staff has done a cold call.