As a content creator, it’s crucial to have an impactful digital marketing strategy, especially if you choose to live stream to your audience on Facebook Live.
During the Leap Into Live Streaming event, Amanda Webb from Spiderworking explained why a digital marketing strategy is essential for any live streamer.
Without one, you may find yourself talking to someone she calls the content gremlin. The content gremlin sits on your shoulder and whispers negativity to you.
Things like:
“You’re wasting your time on social media.”
“This isn’t a business.”
“You’re just messing around online with your live streaming, and it’s not bringing in any sales.”
And guess what? Without a digital marketing strategy, the content gremlin is right!
As an example, think back to the early days of Facebook Live. Do you remember Chewbacca Mom?
Chewbacca Mom is one of the most famous live streamers. She took off because she oozed personality and was 100% herself.
In her videos, she teased her audience with what she was about to say or do. The videos had a structured format as well, with a beginning, middle, and end.
Chewbacca Mom told us stories that were enjoyable and hilarious to watch. But, she didn’t have a follow-up plan for what to do next.
Many creators fall into this cycle because they don’t have a strategy.
Keep on reading to find out what a digital marketing strategy is and how establishing one can turn your live streams into sales.
What are the three stages of a digital marketing strategy?
There are three stages to a successful digital marketing strategy: awareness, consideration, and selling.
Let’s take a look at all three.
First, we have awareness: if people don’t know who you are, they can’t buy from you. During this stage, you need to create content that will attract and build an audience.
Next is consideration. This is when your audience gets to know you a little better and begins to trust you. They know what product or service you sell, and they’re considering buying from you.
The final stage is to sell, and that is when your audience moves forward and makes a purchase from you.
The first two steps in your digital marketing plan work together to help make your sale.
How does live streaming fit into all three phases of your digital marketing strategy?
Awareness
Awareness is the most valuable step in your digital marketing strategy. Without a base audience to start with, it’s hard to sell your product or service later on.
Think about Chewbacca Mom, Candace Payne, as an example. Her video has over 177 MILLION views. Her video was magic: we want to get to know her better and we remember her content.
To be memorable, you need to have a strong brand and embody the same personality every time you go live. As you create your content and digital marketing strategy, think hard about your brand personality and how you want to express yourself.
“Try this exercise when planning content. Think of three words that represent your brand personality. The next time you go live, stick with just those three. Your audience will start to associate those adjectives with your live stream.”
The next step to achieve your awareness goal is to get as many views as possible from your ideal target market. To do this, you need to know who your target market is.
Who is your customer? What type of person comes to you and buys from you? What are their interests? What is their daily life like? What do they want to learn about? What creators do they already follow?
The more you know and understand about your audience, the better. The best way to find out this information is to talk to your existing customers and find out about their lives.
You can even research your target market on existing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Find out what groups they are a part of and what they discuss, or what topics they want more information on.
Once you determine who your target audience is and what type of content they want to see, you can create a live show that will attract them and get the views you need.
You also need to decide where to host your show. Should you stream on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter? Identify where the largest portion of your audience hangs out and start with that platform.
Ideally, you want to stream on as many networks as you can. Then, decide how frequently you want to go live.
When in the awareness stage, you should go live as regularly as possible, such as once a week. Remember, awareness content is about reaching as many people as you can.
If you stream once a week, you give your audience enough time between shows to digest your content without overwhelming them.
The best way to grow your audience and reach as many people as possible is to establish a set time each week you want to go live and stick with it. Then, develop a promotional strategy.
A promotional strategy includes:
Updating your social media and informing your mailing list of when you go live
Adding a call-to-action button on your Facebook Live to get people to sign up for emails
Running social media ads to retarget people who have watched your videos before and make sure they see the next one
Running social media ads to attract a new audience
After you go live, you also need to measure the success of your awareness content.
“To measure the success of your live stream, find out how many people you reached, how many views your content had, what was the average view time, what was the audience retention rate, and what was the overall engagement rate.”
If you stream on Facebook, it’s easy to find some of these statistics. Head to your Facebook business page, open your Creator Studio, and select Content Library.
The Content Library shows all of the recent posts to your Facebook page, including live broadcasts.
You can view the distribution score (based on your historical average), three-second video views and one-minute video views (how long viewers watched), average watch time, audience retention, overall engagement (reactions, comments, and shares), and more for each video.
You can also see if you are reaching the right people by checking your top audience statistics. After each broadcast, take a look and see if your target market is tuning in. If not, you may need to adjust your advertising campaign and ads.
So now, you’ve created an awareness show, you’ve made sure it’s right for your audience, and you’ve measured the show’s success. How do you ensure that people keep coming back to watch your content?
Consideration
The second stage of your digital marketing strategy is consideration.
Your primary goal is to build trust with your audience, so they get to know you, engage with you, and feel like you’re a trustworthy person to do business with. During the consideration phase of your digital marketing strategy, look at your engagement.
Strong engagement is more than just likes and reactions. Focus on comments and speaking directly to your audience as well!
As you stream, engage in conversations with your audience. Ask them questions and make them feel like they are a part of your show. The more you get to know your audience and engage with them, the better chance you have to foster a relationship with them.
When that happens, they will return to your live stream and become a regular viewer of your show.
A live stream show focused on consideration is a way to connect with your audience in a stronger way than building awareness. Your audience already knows you; they just want to get to know you better before they decide to buy from you.
Record tutorials, plan a master class, host an “ask me anything,” do live coaching, or even show the behind-the-scenes content.
Whatever type of show you decide, remember that you are getting closer to the sale. You can cut back on how frequently you go live and try streaming once a month instead of once a week.
Your call-to-action should take viewers to your landing page, sales page, or sign up for your mailing list.
Your Facebook ads should now target people who have watched your videos and engaged with you in the past. You can even add a link to your Facebook Live broadcast by using the Facebook Ads interface.
Sell
Finally, we’ve reached the final stage of the digital marketing strategy: selling. At the end of the day, selling is what your business is all about.
There are a couple of goals you should have for your sales content:
How many sales are a direct result of your live broadcasts?
How many quality leads are the result of your live broadcasts?
How many inquiries do you get at the end of each live stream?
What is your conversion rate?
Your conversion rate is the most important goal for your sales content because it tells you how many people who click through to your website, send you an email, message, or speak with you on the phone turn into customers because of your live streaming.
Remember that these techniques are applicable for one-to-one streams as well, such as a Zoom call, master class, product demo, or an onboarding video. You can even create an exclusive group that members need access to.
Although there isn’t a straight answer for how frequently you should deliver sales content, you should always build buzz around it to make sure that people are interested and want to buy.
To promote sales, you need to put in the effort and spend more time than you did with awareness and consideration. Your call-to-action needs to be stronger as well: “Buy now.” “Sign up today!” “Book now!”
Run a pre-promotion campaign across all of your social media and digital marketing channels. Don’t forget to use your mailing list, which you grew during your awareness and consideration phases.
Measurement during the sales phase of your digital marketing strategy is easy. Look at the number of landing page visits and how many people came as a direct result of your live stream. Then, how many of those people are converting to sales?
Before your next live stream, channel your inner Chewbacca Mom.
Let your personality shine through in your videos, define your brand, and stay consistent with every live stream to build trust with your audience.
Once you know who your audience is and what they need, you can create and deliver content that will interest them.
Your overall goal is to build a relationship with your audience, so strong that they come back again and again, and eventually turn into a customer.
Live streaming is an excellent way to connect with your audience, but you need to focus on your digital marketing strategy for every step along the way.
What stage of Amanda Webb’s digital marketing strategy is your live stream in?
Let me know in the comments what steps you are taking to turn viewers into customers.
