Le Village Boutique Facebook Marketing Strategy
“70% of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers have acquired a customer through Facebook.”
Goals:
To increase traffic and customer engagement on the Le Village Boutique (LVB) Facebook Page in preparation for the launch of Le Village Boutique Online (LVBO), and to drive traffic both to LVB and to LVBO after launch.
Target Audience:
I would appreciate your input here!
Strategies:
1. Improve LVB’s current Facebook Page and online resources;
2. Provide exciting content that encourages engagement and Sharing;
3. Make use of LVB’s established Facebook community to ‘boost the signal’ and increase Page Likes;
4. Engage with community influencers on Facebook to increase brand awareness;
5. Commit to selected paid Facebook advertising;
6. Set up HootSuite to facilitate Facebook posting.
Why is it important for people to Like my Page?
From Facebook: “When people Like your Page, they're eligible to see your most engaging posts in their News Feed. When people like or comment on your posts, their friends may see stories about them engaging with your Page, which can help expand your audience.
You can also use insights about the people who Like your Page, such as where they live, to help you make online and offline decisions about reaching current and new customers. Also, if you run ads on Facebook, the people who Like your Page can make your ads more effective.”
To sum up, you want people to Like your Page so that you have access to an interested audience to promote your business.
Tactics:
1. Improve LVB’s current Facebook Page and online resources
Facebook provides two different features that you can use to market your brand: your personal Facebook account and your Business page. Let’s start with your personal page.
It can be scary to post business stuff on your personal page -- what if you post too much and alienate people, or they just don’t like seeing posts about products? But don’t worry, research shows that most people are actually very interested in reading about products on Facebook.
A generally agreed-upon limit is posting once per day on your personal page about your store, but I think it’s OK to stick to Sharing important posts from your business page -- highlighting any viral content we create (how-to’s, etc), upcoming sales or events, etc. This will improve the stats of the LVB page, and will give you the opportunity to add a little personal comment when you click Share so that the content isn’t exactly the same for those people who might end up seeing both posts.
Your personal page is also a really good place to repost any social media attention you might be getting elsewhere -- fashion show attendees posting about the fun they had, an event you’re donating to mentioning your name, etc.
Let’s move on to your business page.
This is where you’ll be doing the bulk of your Facebook promotion. It’s important to remember that, by Liking the LVB page, your customers have given you their express permission to market to them. They want to know what’s going on at LVB, so it’s our job to do it in a way that’s entertaining and useful and creates a community of LVB fans.
You need to post fairly often. To avoid making your Facebook friends feel like they’re watching a non-stop Le Village commercial, many of these posts can simply be videos, images or articles from other sources that link back to you thematically. One or two LVB posts plus two or three Shared posts per week would be a good place to start. I know that sounds like a lot of work, but later on I’ll discuss getting set up with HootSuite which will allow you to schedule all of your posts for weeks or even months in advance.
We’ll discuss content in detail later as well; in this section we’re going to deal with the actual bones of the LVB Facebook Page.
The ‘About’ Page:
This is the current content of our Facebook About page under the Overview tab (aka the first one users will see):
“Nestled in the heart of the Shoppes of Ridgeville, Le Village is THE place for georgeous home decor items, inspired giftware and beautiful floral arrangements. We also carry unique fashion accessories, jewellery and handbags.”
This is a great start -- clean and simple, states what you sell, and uses descriptive language -- but it’s a bit out of date. We’ll need to make a few updates:
• Remove the mention of floral arrangements.
• Correct the typo in ‘gorgeous’. :)
• Add mention of clothing items.
We still want to keep this description short, but it needs to be fleshed out a little more in addition to the above changes. Specifically, we need to:
• Highlight the convenience of our location.
• Give an impression of the vibe of the store and the items we sell.
• Provide more detail about our products, particularly selling points like the wide range of sizes we offer and our custom products.
Here’s an example:
“Whether you’re looking for the perfect gift, the just-right fashion accessory, the ‘ooh-la-la’ home decor piece or that “I can’t believe how great I look in this!” clothing item, Le Village Boutique has something in store just for you! Proprietress Lise Daniel and her team are always ready to help you choose and wrap a special gift, find the right size (we carry S through XXXL), or even customize a cushion or piece of art to your specifications.
We’re just a hop, skip and a jump from downtown Fonthill and right off Highway 20, nestled in the heart of the Shoppes of Ridgeville. Come on down and make a day of it!
Online shopping coming soon! Please LIKE our Page to stay up-to-date.”
For the Page Info tab, we don’t want to use the same description as we used on the Overview page, as users will have had to see that already in order to navigate to this tab.
Under Short Description, we should include a less flowery summary:
“Le Village Boutique is a home decor, giftware and fashion boutique in the heart of the Shoppes of Ridgeville.”
Under Long Description, we should provide more information but still remain more business-like:
“Le Village Boutique offers the latest in ladies’ fashion and fashion accessories, inspired giftware and stylish home decor, all at reasonable prices and sold with a smile!
We are located just outside the town of Fonthill in Ridgeville, Ontario. You can find us at the intersection of Effingham Street and Canboro Road. Free street parking is available.
Find us on our website @ www.levillagedecor.com
Online shopping coming soon!”
Website Updates:
We’ve got a good start here with the Facebook icon displayed in the top-right corner, which is the optimal location for drawing the eye. However, the icon is quite small and blends too well into the rest of the site. I would suggest more visually prominent icons. These can still mesh with the rest of the site’s design, but will be more likely to draw attention (and therefore Likes).
Evidently some Shopify store themes come with social media icons for free, so we should definitely look into that. If our theme does not come with them, we can download them from the Internet. Here are a few examples:
Eye-catching, but classy and relatively simple:
Shopping themed!:
Shopify provides instructions for adding icons to your website here.
I would also suggest adding a Facebook Like button to the website’s main page. Right now the Facebook icon takes customers directly to the Facebook Page -- which is good of course, but we don’t just want their eyes once, we want them on an ongoing basis. By adding a Like button on the website in addition to the Facebook link, we make it very easy for customers to Like us and therefore keep their eyes on us. Again, Shopify provides instructions here.
Many of these Like buttons for webpages include a counter that shows how many Likes the page has. I think this would be a good choice for us -- we want our customers to feel like they’re part of a growing trend! :)
Shopify themes are apparently all required to provide a Facebook Share button as well, so we should definitely take advantage of that when LVBO is up and have a Share button on individual item pages so that customers can Share what they’re buying.
(side note: As most Shopify themes also provide a Pinterest Pin It button, we should include that as well -- any items customers Pin will link right back to the page where they can purchase the item! There’s no need to worry about keeping up an actual Pinterest account right now, though that could be part of a future strategy)
In-Store:
It’s important to ensure that any customer who walks through the door is aware that we have a Facebook Page. Not only is it important for us to increase our Likes, but it’s a valuable tool for customers to stay in-the-know about sales, contests, new products and special events. Everyone benefits!
It’s obviously inefficient (not to mention annoying!) to tell everyone personally to Like our Page. Posting a small sign (printed in colour for added impact) on the door as well as behind the counter is an effective tool. I’ve created one for your use (see attachments on original email).
You’ll also want to update your business cards with a small Facebook logo and the URL of our Page, and add the link to your autosignature on all LVB emails.
2. Provide exciting content that encourages engagement and Sharing
“Your content should be relevant and fresh, and focus on the clients rather than on your company. What do your existing and potential clients want to read about? What do they want to see? What do they want to learn? Social media is about sharing, not just advertising.”
(http://www.investopedia.com/university/implementing-small-business-social-media-strategy/plan-your-content.asp#ixzz3bAkVvMNS)
Engagement is key. We don’t just want customers to look at our Page, we want them to interact with us and become involved in the LVB community. Involved customers are more likely to spread the word about us and help bring in new customers.
The most important part of this is the Call To Action -- every post that we make should encourage our customers to act in some way. This could take the form of commenting, Sharing a post, participating in a contest or survey or, once LVBO is online, making a purchase.
Some simple starting places for encouraging engagement:
• Ask questions! For example, if you’re posting product photos, end the post with “What would YOU wear this necklace with?” Not only does this bump up our visibility on people’s Newsfeeds, but if used correctly it can provide useful information about the kinds of products and information our customers are looking for.
• Use a conversational tone -- contractions (“We’ll” instead of “We will”), shorter sentences, more informal words. Check the flow of your text by reading it aloud to see if it feels natural and sounds like you. Facebook is about people, so your posts should read the same way you would speak to a customer in the store.
• Visit the Facebook pages of other stores, suppliers, community groups and even ‘influencers’ (well-known bloggers, fashion personalities, etc) and interact with them in the comments section. As they get to know you and find you interesting, they may engage right back! And of course, you can improve your own content using their inspiration!
• Stay up to date on what’s happening in the world, especially as it relates to LVB -- new fashion trends, information about the value of shopping local, special events. People are much more likely to engage with something that’s timely.
• Get emotional! People are more likely to read, remember and share something that touched them emotionally. Nostalgia is a great way to do this. The #ThrowbackThursday hashtag would work well for us -- post old photos of LVB, pictures from previous fashion shows, construction photos, etc.
• Tagging -- post a picture of an outfit and ask: “Which one of your friends would look best in this dress? Tag them in the comments!”
An interesting graph detailing the most popular and engaging content on Facebook.
In summary -- images and surveys are our best friends!
Posting Images
Obviously, as a store images are going to be the majority of our content. Selecting appropriate images goes beyond simply choosing pretty pictures (although that’s definitely important too!). Below you’ll find some guidelines for choosing images as well as the ways you present them in your posts.
Note: We should look into the legality of using your suppliers’ photos in our marketing and on LVBO -- if we can use them we definitely should as they’re nice and professional, and it would save us a lot of time!
Be Clear: The folks at Buffer found that images that are self explanatory get higher engagement than images that require further explanation. In the example below, the image on the left is for the most part self-explanatory while the one on the right requires a description to explain what it’s all about.
In other words, customers shouldn’t have to click through to understand what your image is about, it should be clear right away. If they want more details (or to make a purchase!), they’ll click through.
If you're posting product images, consider overlaying some text on your image that gives more context such as "New", "Back in Stock" or "Winter 2013 Collection". For example (my apologies for the made-up prices!):
Pixlr provides a great free online photo editor that’s especially useful for adding text to images -- It’s what I used to create the above image. You can find it here, and I’ll be happy to either give you a tutorial or do some editing for you -- it’s fun!