Discover expert tips on targeting, setup, visuals, and aligning campaigns with business goals to drive quality social media leads. Social media marketing is a powerful tool for the growth of your business.
Use these tips and steps to help you build your best social media marketing strategy.
Gain insight into targeting best practices, bidding strategies, and how to optimise your Facebook ads for better results and ROI. Learn how to generate leads, increase conversions, and build your brand by creating a social media marketing strategy for your business.
Align social media marketing goals with business objectives. Track engagement, clicks, and conversions with the help of social media management software.
Key take away
- Successful social media campaigns require skilled account management.
- Lead generation success is enhanced by a detailed setup with advanced targeting.
- Attract attention and build trust with high-quality visuals and storytelling.
- Achieve measurable success by aligning campaigns with your business objectives.
- Lead quality and conversions are improved through constant communication and feedback.
In today’s digital world, the question of whether social media is worth the effort for lead generation is often asked by businesses in traditional sectors such as property, finance, and professional services. Some believe that these platforms don’t work or deliver poor-quality leads. This is often due to negative experiences in the past. But with the right approach, platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram can be the source of real, qualified leads that can (and do) convert into sales.
Maximising lead generation with social media
Social media allows businesses to connect directly with potential customers at different stages of their journey, rather than simply grabbing their attention. By creating content that is relevant to their needs or curiosity, you can build relationships that move people from casual interest to serious inquiry. Done right, social media advertising can result in more informed and engaged leads—those more likely to become customers.
Here are the top five things to get right when using social media for lead generation. Learn expert social media strategies for targeted lead generation, setup, visuals, and campaign alignment with business goals.
The power of professional account management
Having a true professional manage your account is often what separates successful social media campaigns from the duds. It’s not as simple as posting ads. The person setting them up must have a deep understanding of their craft.
They need to understand the intricacies and nuances that define each advertising platform. From targeting the right audiences and setting the most optimal campaign objectives to influencing algorithms and identifying areas for optimization.
But here’s the kicker: whoever is running your campaigns should be experienced and know what they’re doing. Take the time to find out about the campaigns they’ve run in the past and the results they’ve achieved. Ask them about the specific deals that have been closed as a result of the leads that they have generated for you. It’s not just about their credentials; what matters most is that they have a proven track record of delivering real, measurable results.
It’s important to dig deeper and find out exactly who will be running your campaigns if you’re working with an agency. Who will be the copywriter for the ad copy? Who will do the ad design?
A lot of agencies may have a charismatic salesperson who impresses you in the first few meetings, but then they hand your project over to a team of inexperienced juniors or low-cost talent who just don’t cut the mustard. This can lead to a disconnect between what’s expected and what’s delivered.
Skilled account managers know how and when to refine campaigns over time. They’ll use detailed analysis of metrics like engagement rates and A/B testing to continually develop your campaigns, from targeting to creative. So your campaigns don’t get static.
Ongoing optimisation is a constant driver of performance improvement, giving you the best possible return on your investment. Even when things are going well, there’s always room to improve.
The importance of a detailed setup
I hate to break it to you, but setting up a social media advertising strategy isn’t as simple as clicking on the ‘Boost Post’ button. It starts with laying a solid foundation—defining your target audience, using advanced targeting tools, and setting up advanced tracking using the APIs and tracking pixels of the ad platform of your choice.
Setting it up needs to be much more granular than most people expect. The key to a successful social media advertising strategy is the breaking down of campaigns into smaller, hyper-focused chunks. You’ll likely need to run multiple campaigns simultaneously, each targeting different audience segments or objectives, rather than one broad campaign.
These campaigns are often broken down into several ad sets, each of which is fine-tuned to reach a specific demographic, geographic region, or stage of the customer journey. For example, one ad set might target new, cold leads, while another focuses on retargeting users who’ve visited or engaged with your website.
Then, within each set of ads, you will need to run a number of variations of your ad creative. The key here is to avoid relying on a single message or a single piece of design.
Instead, whether it’s the message, the design, or the call to action, you should create several versions of the ad with noticeable differences. This allows you to test which combinations work best. Dynamic ad copy, which automatically adapts messages to increase relevance for individual users, is particularly effective here.
Yes, this complexity increases the workload. But it also increases the likelihood of success. Of course, it also means a lot more data management.
As these campaigns evolve, you’ll need to keep track of performance metrics for each campaign, ad set, and creative. You’ll also need to constantly adjust and refine based on real-time insights.
A strong setup is not a ‘set it and forget it’ approach. It’s a process of continuous improvement. It’s driven by new data and insights to continually improve results.
High-quality copy and creatives
People scrolling through social media are bombarded with ads every few seconds; it’s no secret. Your ads must exude quality and sophistication to stand out.
High-quality visuals aren’t just eye-catching. They also help build trust. Potential customers are more likely to perceive your organisation as credible and reliable when they see polished, professional designs. You may even be able to charge a higher price for your products or services as a result of strong branding.
Margins, font choice, colour schemes, spelling, and grammar—don’t underestimate the small details that may seem obvious but can have a big impact. You’d be surprised how often these elements are overlooked. Yet they can dramatically influence how your brand is perceived. A well-designed advertisement that pays attention to these details sends a clear message that you care.
With storytelling, take it a step further. Instead of just promoting a product or service, weave narratives that have a deep connection with your audience. Take a behind-the-scenes look at your company’s values and culture, or share customer success stories that show how your company has made a real difference. If people can relate to the story and the people behind the story, they’ll be much more likely to engage with your brand and trust it.
So invest in good design and carefully craft what you want to say. To stand out in the crowded social media space, focus on every detail and use storytelling.
Understanding commercial objectives
Launching social media campaigns without clearly defined objectives is a common mistake companies make. Each post should directly support your business objectives, whether it is generating sales leads, growing your database, or increasing brand awareness. For example, a real estate agency might focus on generating enquiries for specific projects. A financial advisory firm might focus on increasing the number of advice bookings.
To the person or agency running your campaigns, it’s important to communicate your objectives. Make sure they fully understand what you’re trying to achieve.
Don’t hesitate to ask for clarification if you need it. You should also seek their expert advice. Sometimes the way you think will be most effective, such as driving traffic to your website, may not be the best way to achieve your goal.
Define what success looks like to you at this stage. It helps to set the direction of the campaign by setting clear expectations.
It’s not impossible. However, it’s unusual to close a deal in the first few weeks.
Social media advertising often takes time to build momentum. It may require several adjustments before it delivers the desired results.
Embrace this process. You’ll be better positioned for long-term success.
Constant communication and feedback
The launch of your campaigns is only the beginning. The real value comes from following up. Ongoing communication ensures that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals—you, your sales team, and your marketing team or agency. Working together is essential to success.
Encourage your marketing team to keep you informed about any poor-quality leads as well as the productive conversations you have. This feedback loop will be the key to understanding what’s working and where there’s room for improvement. Marketing may see the big picture. However, insights from the sales floor often reveal important details that can significantly shape your strategy.
Your marketing team has valuable information to optimise campaigns when your sales team shares what’s working with prospects or where conversations are falling short. They can build on those strategies if they know what’s working. Similarly, if they know what isn’t generating interest, they can quickly change direction. This way, they don’t waste resources on unproductive tactics.
Essential to this process is a reliable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Your CRM can quantify and measure leads as they move from marketing to sales through effective reporting. This level of visibility helps you to track the entire journey of a lead and to evaluate the effectiveness of different marketing strategies. You can gain valuable insights that can shape future marketing decisions by understanding how leads perform after they are transferred to sales.
Create an environment that thrives on feedback by fostering a culture of collaboration and open communication between your sales and marketing teams or agencies. This approach drives continuous improvement. It leads to higher-quality leads and more conversions.
Social media can be your secret weapon for lead generation
Social media can be your secret weapon for generating serious leads if you’re in property, finance, or professional services. Sure, there’s a lot of scepticism out there. But with the right strategy, you can get quality leads that turn into sales.
To get it right, you need a few key ingredients: serious professionals to manage your campaigns, a robust setup for targeting and tracking, high-quality visuals, and compelling stories that connect with your audience. And don’t forget to set clear goals and objectives and to keep the lines of communication open between your sales and marketing teams.
You’ll improve results, increase brand awareness, and keep your sales team on track by bringing all these elements together. What’s more, you’ll be growing your database with all those enquiries that don’t convert straight away, setting the stage for further engagement. These prospects will now be primed and ready to hear more from you, which will make your future marketing efforts even more promising.