How to do business without depending on Facebook?
I kept asking myself this question 3 years ago when I started selling shoes when I started to notice that Facebook was increasingly trying to suck the blood out of business. But it's strange that up to now, many people still consider Facebook as the only sales channel and complain about lack of sales and too much expensive advertising on groups every time they think that Facebook is sneezing.
You can rest assured that advertising prices will increase day by day, so no matter how much you complain, it won't bring any benefit. So why shouldn't you depend on Facebook?
- The nature of Facebook advertising is still auctioning display positions, so the more advertisers participate, the more advertising prices will increase. Especially big brands both domestic and foreign have joined with abundant budgets.
- Natural access on fanpages is increasingly being squeezed by Facebook. For example, previously one of your posts could reach 10% of people liking your page, but now it's only 1-2%, not even if your fanpage has more likes. (The above data is just an example. If you want exact data, you can Google it)
- Users are increasingly bored and wary of ads after a long time of being caught by ads. Although the number of FB users has increased, it is definitely not as per the statistics because most of them are virtual accounts created with tools for seeding, making spam friends or creating a booming advertising account.
- Every time a cable breaks or FB is blocked, business is immediately affected.
I do not deny the effectiveness of Facebook for business. But if you don't want to see advertising and sales, you will lose money. Without advertising, inventory, operating costs, and staff will be lost, then please do not continue to consider Facebook as your only business channel. Because, I've also encountered similar situations and couldn't do anything else because I was playing on their field.
So how not to depend on Facebook?
- Add other customer outreach channels suitable for your industry such as: Google Adwords, Instagram, Zalo Ads, Coc Coc,...
- Use Google Adwords or Facebook remarketing to remarket to customers who haven't made a purchase.
- Store customer data and use this data well (this is essential if you want to stay ahead of your competitors, this is the era of data), you can utilize or share data with an affiliate to support each other. For example: Data of customers who bought houses with furniture items, Data of customers who bought shoes with customers who bought clothes,...
- Take good care of customers who have purchased products to take advantage of the word-of-mouth channel (this is like a separate art, so you need to learn more, there are many books on how to do it, you can read it first). : Word Of Mouth Marketing)
That's just one part, any social network or media channel is just a way to bring customers to you, it's not your store. They can block your Page at any time if they want.
To apply all of the above, you need to build a good brand and create a website. I confirm this is extremely necessary, because the Website is your store, where you can do anything you want.
Creating a website is similar to when you sell offline. Social networks are the path to your products. If you open a store on the sidewalk, you don't let the decorations or signs hang completely as you wish, unprofessional, and at any time the ward order can make you disappear and you have nothing to show for it. Connect with customers again.
But if you have a store, you can decorate, arrange products and furniture arbitrarily, you also have your own fixed location where customers can come to buy products or introduce acquaintances to them. …as long as you pay the full monthly rent.
If you do not have much experience with websites, you can read the article: Which platform should I choose as an online sales website?