Facebook as a Marketing Funnel

Many businesses are investing resources into building a Facebook presence for their brand to engage with fans, ambassadors, ambassadors, press, influencers and customers. The question for most businesses is how to move the page from just a PR and Marketing awareness page—in the traditional marketing funnel – to a consideration and purchase page, thereby increasing the marketing conversion rates into solid, traceable sales.

A typical Facebook user spends more a good part of their day on Facebook. And according to Compete.com, 68% of people become fans of retail pages to keep up to date on sales and promotions. So what’s the logic for a business to provide e-commerce on Facebook? Many businesses realize that if their fans are on Facebook to connect with family and friends and to engage with brands and receive coupons and deals, it may make sense to provide the ability for fans to purchase products, too.

In terms of real businesses today on Facebook, there is a wide range of how e-commerce is being handled. They range from Facebook shops selling airline tickets, beauty products, baby products and clothes to specialty BBQ sauces well as offering the ability to participate in charity donations and buy tickets for shows. Businesses are using the Wall as a shop “window” as well as to actively promote and purchase products on the shop or store Facbook page itself.

To give you a good understanding of how companies are using f-commerce, you might check out Dr. Natalie’s book Like My Stuff. The book’s chapters are packed full of practical examples of how businesses are using Facebook e-commerce. There are screenshots to illustrate how the brand uses Facebook and what the customer sees and can do. Having concrete examples helps to demonstrate the “how to” part of using Facebook for e-commerce.

It’s highly recommended that you take the time to go online and click through the pages as you are learning about how to use Facebook for Marketing and Social Commerce. This will give you a more experiential feel for how brands use f-commerce. And note, some of the Facebook pages and stores may have changed by the time you are reading this book. That’s how fast things happen in the social networked world.

What’s the financial return for f-commerce? Some businesses are seeing as much as 20% of overall online sales coming via their Facebook stores as well as higher cart values as compared to traditional e-commerce venues. That in part maybe due to the influence of friends, family or colleagues and the recommendations that come from people they know, vs. unidentified stranger’s review on e-review or e-opinion sites.