Setting up a Facebook Store is an efficient way to build an online shop.
Instead of setting up a new site for your online store, you can create a Store with just a few clicks of a button. You can still develop a separate online store alongside your Facebook Store. But this offers an easier alternative for non-designers who do not have time to learn code.
If you have lots of fans, your Store will also be just a click away from your Facebook Page.
A Facebook Store allows you to keep your community and products in one place. This makes promoting and selling your services much more convenient.
To benefit from your Facebook Store, you must use the right apps. Once you have set up the Store, you need to drive traffic to it and turn visitors into customers.
Below is a short guide on how you can launch a Facebook Store for your online business.
Choose the best platform
Creating a Facebook Store requires you to refer to third-party services. One of the more popular ones is Shopify.
Upon installing the app on your Facebook Page, you can upload the products for sale. Choose the products that you want to feature on the tabs of your Page. Any change you make on each of the products you uploaded for sale will reflect on the Store in an instant.
There are other apps that can help you set up your Facebook Store. Some offer the ability to feature products for sale, you can track and measure the metrics of your Store. Use the data to improve your Store and get more buyers. Other features include Choose from attractive banners, special offers, group deals, and more.
You can view the best Facebook Store Apps in this article at CrazyEgg.
Secure Distribution Channels
Even before your Facebook Store goes live, inform your target market of your plans.
Send out a campaign to your email list. Let them know that they can buy products straight off Facebook. To make your campaign more interesting, offer a promo to your Facebook fans. Give them a discount for items they pre-order upon launch.
You can still drum up interest to your Facebook Store before launch even if you do not have an email list.
In fact, you can build an email list using your Facebook Store launch as bait.
Sign up forms
You can set up a sign-up form on your website using SumoMe or HelloBar so you can include them to your mailing list. Come up with a campaign to engage with subscribers and turn them into loyal audiences.
A great way to do is by sending emails that detail your progress in building your Facebook Store. This helps keep your subscribers in the loop and help humanize your brand.
Give aways
You can also use Rafflecopter to launch a raffle. Aside from discounts or gift cards, think of other creative ways to reward winners. The idea here is to build an audience and create buzz surrounding your launch.
You can promote your raffle or email subscription through social media. Now is the best time to set up your other social channels like Twitter, Pinterest, and Instragram. You can tap into your potential clients from these sites by creating a campaign for each site.
Find your competitors and potential customers
For Twitter, you can use Followerwonk to find your competitors and follow their followers.
You can view the tweets of your potential customers in your stream and gain insight on what makes them tick. You can build relationships with them by retweeting them and replying on their tweet.
The purpose is doing these is to bridge the gap between you and your customers. Once you have established the relationship, inform them about your upcoming Facebook Store.
Another way to promote the launch of your Store is to tie up with bloggers or influencers within your niche. You can email and ask for help in promoting the site. In exchange, you can also give them a discount to certain products, if not give them away for free.
You can find these people using Ninja Outreach. The tool has a built-in search function that lets you search for people based on your keyword. It returns relevant people complete with their contact details. The tool also has email templates that you can edit and send to people to make the email process easier.
Set up products for sale
Upload the best resolution of the image for each product. Take shots from different angles to give viewers different perspective of the products. Unless you are confident with your photography skills, you ought to hire a professional. S/he will ensure that your products look good when turned into image files.
You should also focus on the web copy of each item for sale. You want the description for each product to be as detailed as possible. At the same time, the description should compel visitors to buy the product. You may to hire a copywriter to help shore up the product description.
These may cost in the short term, but you need to look at things the long run. Investing in these services get your Facebook Store a professional feel. This helps increase the reach of your products and services to your target market.
Promote your Shop like there’s no tomorrow
Once you have launched the site, it is time to bring your promotions strategy up a notch.
Continue tapping into the audience you have developed over time. Keep them engaged on social media or through your emails. Report your weekly activities and thank them for helping you out for the launch of your Facebook Shop.
You may want to consider using paid ads for promoting your online shop. Facebook Ads are affordable enough to help you reach out to your audience. Once again, get outside help from a copywriter to craft the message for you.
You also would want to extend your reach to your audience who are not aware of your Store. One way of doing this is by using strategic guest blogging. The idea behind this is to get your posts published at high-authority sites. Once people read your article, they will be curious enough to visit your Facebook Store.
Pulling this off requires you to come up with a foolproof campaign. You can refer to this post written by Brian Dean at Backlinko.
Conclusion
There are different factors that comprise a successful Facebook Store launch. This post covered most of those. You will have to do a lot to build an audience and develop relationships with each of them.
It takes hard work to pull these off, but the payoff is worth it. The more people paying attention ever before you launch your Facebook Store, the better.
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