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Mari Smith, CEO at Mari Smith Int., Inc. and Facebook Marketing expert, also known as the “Queen of Facebook,” gave an amazing presentation at the Worlds of Learning 2022 online summit.
Mari shared her strategy for selling digital products on Facebook and Instagram, focusing on online courses. She also elaborated on the types of social media posts course creators should be posting and how to nurture your audience and push them down the marketing funnel.
Spot-on advice and great case studies. Mari Smith’s talk was jam-packed with valuable tips, full of energy, and great vibes!
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Using Facebook and Instagram to Boost Course Sales
Facebook and Instagram are among the most popular social media platforms. Let’s see how they can be used to engage your audience and expand your online course business. In Mari’s words:
You want your content to be highly relatable and personable. I call it P2P, which stands for People-to-People. Whether you serve businesses or consumers, they’re all made up of people.
Mari Smith
Short-form vertical video is the darling of the day, anywhere from five seconds up to three minutes; reels on Instagram. Video makes up 49% of all mobile traffic worldwide.
Mari Smith
Think strategically, like a relationship marketer, and don’t be pushy. Your goal is to build relationships with people by connecting with them. You should genuinely want to know about your audience and show them that you care about them with passion.
Mari Smith
5 Proven Steps to Sell Your Online Courses on Facebook and Instagram
If there’s one renowned expert who has a validated strategy to provide you with, that’s Mari! Here’s her 5-step winning strategy for selling courses on Facebook and Instagram.
Step #1 – Prepare to capture high-quality leads
The first step is to prepare yourself to capture high-quality leads. This means that you need to have dedicated landing pages and offer relevant lead magnets.
💡 Why do you need to capture leads in the first place?
So, what makes a good lead magnet?
A lead magnet is a special free offer that people get when they opt-in to give you their email address. Ideally, an effective lead magnet offers tremendous value within the first 5 minutes of opt-in so that people will want more of your content.
Here are some characteristics of a good lead magnet:
Some ideas for free offers/lead magnets: newsletter, samples, live webinars, email courses, contests/giveaways, quiz results, and more.
💡 Why do we use social media to capture leads?
Mari Smith is very clear about this; we use social media to capture leads because they’re rented land! All social platforms are rented land. You don’t own your audience on these platforms. So, you want to capture email addresses (yes, email marketing is still alive and kicking, so use it!), phone numbers, and/or DMs.
Then, you want to nurture these leads.
In internet marketing, we say that money is on the list. What Mari Smith says is that,
Remember – behind every single email address on your list is a real person with needs, wants, desires, challenges, and problems that you can help them solve with your courses.
Step #2 – Create compelling social content
Let’s hear some concrete advice and examples of what constitutes compelling social media content.
1. Undoubtedly, visuals, videos, and reels are the best-performing content. Some quick tips on videos:
2. Your content needs to be well-targeted. That means:
3. You also need to make your content boostable and worthy of an ad budget. It should be content that can be repurposed.
💡 What’s the best “recipe” for a compelling presence on Facebook?
Mari suggests the following ratio for Facebook posts:
Here are a few examples of content types you can post:
Step #3 – Be strategic with your CTAs
Here’s what you need to pay attention to when adding CTAs to your posts:
Step #4 – Amplify your unicorn posts
Unicorn posts are the posts generating the best results. You can use paid campaigns (and run other ads) or amplify them organically by sharing them as much as possible.
💡 Mari’s amplifying method
Step #5 – Build a vibrant, engaged community
Organic reach on Facebook is between 1% to 6%. So instead of focusing on getting organic reach and engagement, it’s best to focus on building meaningful communities on or off Facebook.
Facebook groups are a powerful top-of-the-funnel tool. See how you can use them to build engagement:
More engagement tips for Facebook:
Most importantly, remember:
Content is King, but Community is Queen, and she rules the house.
Mari Smith
Mari Smith’s Free Resources for Course Creators
1. Join Mari Smith’s Social Scoop on Facebook for leaders of all types. Mari and her team regularly share social media trends, news, tips, special offers, and more. Keep an eye out for additional member benefits directly from Mari! You can also ask relevant questions at any time, and you are prompted to ask for -and provide wherever you can- peer support.
2. Join Mari Smith’s Superstars, a new online community for fast-moving people in an accelerated culture. Mari’s superstars are people from all walks of life seeking guidance, mentorship, clarity, direction, evolution, leadership, development, mastery, training, expertise, skill building, and practice to transform themselves and their communities.
Ready to Grow Your Business With Social Media?
💌 Like this content? More of this will come at the next WOL – 2023, and we can’t wait to see you there!
Further reading you might find interesting:
Rosemary is LearnWorlds’ Content Marketing Manager. She has over 2 decades of experience in omnichannel marketing and content writing for the IT and SaaS industry. Her expertise lies in crafting effective content marketing strategies that attract, engage, and nurture customers, enabling LearnWorlds to reach its target audiences with precision.
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