71% of users of social media websites say that they are more likely to purchase products from the brand they follow online on different platforms. With over 1.70 billion monthly active users, Facebook leads the social media game by a huge margin. These stats are enough to show the emphasis of social media marketing in today’s time.

This serves as a boon for the companies that are looking to market their products on these social media platforms. Getting such a huge audience at the prices better than that of traditional marketing ways is a dream. But this could also be a bane if not handled properly as in most of the cases, where the wrong audience is targeted. So everything comes down to the target audience. 

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But wait, what is the target audience?

The target audience is the demographic of people who are most likely to show interest in the products or services provided by the brands. For example: If you own a women apparel store, your target audience is women of age group, 16 to 60 years or if you own a toy store then your target audience are parents and not the kids themselves. After we target the relevant audience, we need to understand ROI for a business.

 What is marketing ROI?

Marketing in general serves two goals. First is to identify the customer and second is to satisfy the customer. It is a process that helps you find the relevant customer and keep them. The better your marketing, the more sales and profit you earn. But all of this costs money; it can range from 5% to over 30% of your sales. Some marketing methods costs more and carry high risks but are highly rewarding where as some methods may not cost as much but may also vary in the rewards. Thus, the key is to focus on the marketing strategies that yield the highest ROI.

How to maximize your returns with social media marketing?

There are four things that your business needs to focus on, so as to maximize the ROI.

Identify Your Target Audience

The most vital decision brands can make is to identify the target audience. Identify as many characteristics as possible. The more brands know about their target audience, the easier it will be to find the potential customers and compel them to buy from you or use your services.

By focusing on the niche target audience, brands can run the marketing campaigns more cost-efficiently. If the target audience is too broad, brands will likely waste money marketing to prospects that are not interested in their products.

Develop a Relationship With Your Target Audience

Once brands have clearly identified the target audience, they can now devise a strategy to develop a relationship with them. One way to do so is to advertise and promote the products and services. Advertising helps in building the awareness of the brand.

Social media is a great way to develop a relationship with the target audience. Brands can learn about their interests, attitudes and values. Also, as brands share the information about themselves, they can gather more facts about the audience. This acts as a long term investment and increases the ROI. 

Turn Impressions into Money

There is an impression every time a prospective customer sees or hears about the brand. ROI can also stand for return on impression and to maximize this, brands need to reach more eyeballs that turn into relationship and then into loyal customers.

To maximize the ROI, brands need to be particular with how they deliver their impressions. With the right type of media, deliver the impressions to the target audience and yield a higher ROI. 

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Increase the Lifetime Value of the Customers

Each customer has a lifetime value that is the amount of money brands can expect to earn from a customer for the entire lifetime of their relationship with your brand.

To maximize the ROI, brands should focus on customers that can yield the highest lifetime value. Some factors to be considered are:

The first factor to focus on is the acquisition cost. It is the amount   that costs a brand to turn a prospect into a customer. The lower your acquisition cost, the more money you make.

The second factor to focus on is the retention rate. It is the mount of customers buying your product again. The better brands can recognize their needs, the more likely customers will buy from them again. And the more frequently customers buy from a brand, the higher will be the customer value.

Social media targeting and ROI conversion is not an overnight game and requires some research and development as well as time to happen. Trying the above four steps might prove to be a game changer in a business and maximize ROI. Thus, it is always advisable to depend on professional and experienced agencies for an accelerated result. 

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