From Strangers to Customers in 3 Steps

A Proven Facebook Video Marketing Strategy

If you’re on Facebook, then you’re probably - or should I say hopefully - using videos in your Facebook marketing.

Here are a few stats to put video marketing and especially Facebook video marketing into perspective:

• According to Forbes, over 500 million people are watching videos on Facebook EVERY DAY.
• 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others.
• 51% of marketing professionals name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
• Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
• 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos.
• Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
• Views on branded video content have increased 258% on Facebook and 99% on YouTube as of June 2017.
• Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement.
• Native videos on Facebook have ten times higher reach compared to YouTube links.
• Facebook gets over 8 billion average daily video views.

But… do you have an effective strategy that turns complete strangers into paying customers?

Or are you – like most marketers – just winging it, hoping that something will work?

If so, take heart, because we’ve found an effective Facebook strategy that gets people who never heard of you to like you, trust you and ultimately buy from you.

In fact, you can use this same basic strategy in almost any social media arena, not just Facebook.

And with this strategy, you’ll be light years ahead of most of your competition. After all, they’re still moving straight into selling mode, while you’ll know better.

Your goal here is to create nine short videos. Yes, 9. I know that sounds like a lot, but each video will only be 60 to 90 seconds long.

First, you’re going to build brand awareness. Yes, we’ve been told in the past that anything short of going for the sale is pointless. But in today’s marketing world, people need to hear your story first, before they’ll decide whether or not they want to proceed further.

Next, you’ll build social engagement by helping your future customers and proving that you do indeed know exactly what you’re talking about. In fact, you are the expert who can help them solve their problem or get the benefit they seek.

And finally, you’ll convert these new fans and prospects into paying customers who are eager to have precisely what you offer.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Brand Awareness: Getting on Your Prospect’s Radar

No one is going to buy from you if they don’t know the first thing about you, your company or your products.

And the very best way to do this is with your ‘why’ stories.

Why are you in the business you’re in? What’s your personal story? Why do you do what you do?

For example, let’s say that your business is coaching people on how to lose weight.

You might talk about your own weight loss struggle, how difficult it was, and all the ways it negatively impacted your life.

Finally, you found a solution that worked, and now you want to help others get the same results you achieved, without all the struggle.

See how easy that is?

No matter what niche or business you’re in, there is a story or history that you can share with your viewers.

And by relating this story, your viewers will develop an emotional connection with you, your product, and your business.

The role of your first video sequence is to help potential customers understand you and why you’re in business, connecting your story with your brand.

You might do three videos that tell your stories. In our weight loss example, they might be…

1: The time when you were overweight and how it impacted your life in a good, emotional basis.

2: Your struggle with losing the weight, the diets you tried, and how you felt when you failed over and over again.

3: The impact of having lost the weight, how it changed your life, and why you want to help others lose weight, too.

With these videos, you are setting the stage to tell your audience how they’re going to achieve the result they seek.

You’ll find that being authentic attracts people to your brand like almost nothing else.

Step 2: Building Social Engagement Through Proving Your Expertise

Now that you’ve built awareness and rapport with your audience, you’re going to work on building engagement by demonstrating your expertise.

It doesn’t matter what your niche is – there is something you can demonstrate that will help to establish you and your business as a trustworthy source of information.

The better and more useful (as well as entertaining) your content is, the more engagement you will build between yourself and your audience. Do a significant enough job, and your audience will even share your content with others, thereby creating even more engagement and possible customers.

Think of these videos as your opportunity to teach something useful to your prospects.

You’re not going to teach everything, of course. You’re not giving away your store of knowledge, but instead you’re giving away short persuasive samples.

And it’s not about showing how great you are or how much you know – it’s about being helpful to your viewers, regardless of whether they become your customers.

Choose three things to teach that will surprise and delight your viewers. These could be simple tricks for accomplishing something. Or maybe you show them a new method, or offer some insider information, or… really, there are so many possibilities, and it will depend on your niche and your customers.

You can teach things that are reasonably simple and easy. Your videos need to be short, and there’s no time to go into anything complicated. For example, a plumbing business might teach how to fix something easy in the back of the toilet, or how to accurately snake a drain.

Or, you can teach something that is somewhat complicated, and acknowledge that it takes a certain experience to do it. For example, that same plumbing business might explain how to properly install a toilet. Most people, when they see this done, will realize they want a professional to do it for them, considering everything that could potentially go wrong.

Another possibility is to teach what to do, but not how to do it. This primes your prospects to want your solution in the next step. For example, if you sell software that simplifies things, you can teach the old-fashioned method of how to do what your software does, only by hand.

One more thing – don’t hold too much back. I recently wanted to take a course on drawing. I had maybe 30 different classes to choose from, but out of those 30, only two courses actually gave me a real-life lesson for free. All of the others simply talked about how great their courses were, without teaching me anything. Don’t make this mistake.

Going back to our previous diet example, you might make these three videos:

Video 4: Describing a quick and easy interval training routine for couch potatoes to get them moving again

Video 5: One of the surprising supplements or foods that you recommend to lose weight

Video 6: One or two of your 21 secrets to losing weight safely, quickly, and automatically.

Did you know that searches related to “how-to” on YouTube are growing 70% year over year? And Facebook is poised to catch up to YouTube.

After all, if someone is already logged into Facebook and they want to know how to do something, they’re not going to jump to YouTube to search.

People want fast answers on how to do things. And you can capitalize on this by putting the right material in front of your prospects and social following.

Step 3: Using the Power of “What” to Convert

You’ve told your story and demonstrated that you’re here to help people solve their problems with your knowledge and expertise.

You’ve developed authenticity, and you’ve engaged your prospects with the educational content they can use.

Now it’s time to close the sale with your last three videos.

Your product or service is “what.” Most businesses start with this final step, immediately offering their solution without building any rapport or demonstrating their expertise.

If you don’t set the stage, then you’re going to be ignored by prospective customers. After all, who wants to connect with a business or individual who is continually spamming with their sales pitches?

Your final videos in this series will demonstrate that you have the solution to their problem or the path to acquiring the result they seek.

This is the selling you’re already familiar with, so we won’t go into a lot of detail. You know the routine – promise a significant benefit, show that you can deliver that benefit, and do it in a way that encourages immediate action.

Going back to our weight loss example, your videos could be…

Video 7: The big benefit of your product and how it will impact their life, followed by a call to action.

Video 8: The bullet points of your product – raise their curiosity and interest – followed by a call to action.

Video 9: The last call for your product – the special you’ve been offering is about to expire – short and fast testimonial(s) – followed by a call to action.

Things to Know:

• This is as much art as science. Follow the sequence above but use your good judgment as to video content.

• Keep your videos short. Facebook recommends videos between 20 to 90 seconds in length, so cut out all the fluff and get to the good stuff.

• Don’t use a catchy “intro” sequence. You know the ones I mean. Music plays, graphics come up, and the meat of the video doesn’t start for 5 to 15 seconds. You don’t have time for that nonsense, so dive right into your best content. Start with a very catchy benefit or premise.

• Place your words on your screen. Camtasia, subtitles… choose a method that shows your concepts as well as speaking them. Why? Because something like 85% of Facebook videos is viewed without sound. Crazy but true.

• Focus on the content, not on making a Hollywood masterpiece. No one expects you to be Steven Spielberg’s protégé, so don’t even go there.

• Have fun with this. Ideally, you script out your videos in one day and finish them the second day. Enjoy the process, don’t sweat the details, and just get them online. See what’s working and what’s not, readjust, and do it again.

• If you focus on speed rather than perfection, you can get several sets of these videos up in the next month or two, rather than just one game.

• Keep in mind that you plan on doing several sets – write out what your themes and topics might be, along with your special offers.

• Have fun. Yes, I know I just said it, but here’s the thing – if you’re having fun, then your viewers are having fun. If you don’t have a clue how to make this fun, do your entire first series standing on your head or something equally silly. The important thing is you don’t take yourself too seriously.

Focus on helping your viewer, and everything else will fall into place.