It is important for marketers to know their sales cycle processes, and the role each plays in achieving highest conversions.

I have commented before how statistically only a small percentage of sales are driven directly from social media. BUT that does not diminish the role at all that social media plays within your marketing process and the development of your brand. While for some their Facebook page is not a money machine itself, when the community is properly managed and interacted with it will result in MUCH higher conversions along all the allied products within a brand, whether that brand be an individual expert on a niche or a company with a line of related products, as they proceed through your marketing and sales funnels.

For direct marketers, where are they on day 7, day 15, or day 30, and beyond?

For local merchants social media plays an even more important factor, as people use social media to find YOU, rather than you running after them.

So lets look at the big picture:

Remember it is SOCIAL media, your goal is to interact with your ideal prospects, engage them and show them your place in the market, it may be ok to let them know why you are their ideal and truly only solution, but lets be social and very subtle, do not go for a one night stand. Most importantly build relationships with your prospects and customers, who will in turn will convert more and some become raving fans.

As for email, the message is much the same, think about why the number one driver of sales is email. It is because you have established a relationship with that prospect, they know what you represent now in the marketplace and how you can best fill their need, and “warmed” through positive exposure on your list, now primed for the sale.

So learn from the message this article points out, but don’t mistake the value of building your brand with a clear message and the value of ongoing interaction with and relationship building with your customers and prospects within your business processes so you achieve maximum conversions.

Following is the study: (note that this not on our site)http://resources.exacttarget.com/rs/exacttarget/images/SFF14_The2012ChannelPreferenceSurvey_WEB.pdf

As consumer sentiments have improved from the last few years, opportunities rise for savvy marketers and business owners.  Studies indicate Mother’s Day 2012 will be one of the most commercialized holidays in the United States, and sales for gifts peak during the days preceding Mother’s Day. It is common for children to buy gifts, flowers, and cards for their mothers on Mother’s Day, not to mention the “responsibilities” felt by many husbands in celebrating appropriately.

If you are a small business or a general offline or internet marketer, take a close look at various opportunies that are heading your way overthe course of the coming week.

For businesses and offline consultants, this may mean preparing clients for the opportunities that abound.   For all businesses it brings the opportunty to offer special sales and discounts to mothers, in a variety of markets, and even general mothers day sales for your all existing customers through  turning this into a VIP sales opportunity for them,

So as this holiday quickly approaches, also take a look at how your business can best take advantages of the opportunities it brings your way.

Particularly how to optimize them, and make sure that all the things we “know” we need to do, are actually getting done. So we are going to take a quick look at PPC campaigns and how you can get a  lot more from them, and pick up some insights along the way.

Per Per Click campaigns,  can be a great way to bring instant traffic to your website, and pay for only the actual traffic you get,  but there are many things you can do to optimize, and get the most from your PPC campaigns. So here are a few things that you can do to actually lower your PPC costs, and make sure you get the most from each campaign.

So I will assume that you have completed the research phase, done all the research necessary, created the appropriate keywords for adwords or other text ad campaign, made display ad banners, know who your ideal customer is, and are now already running, or ready to run some ad campaigns.

Split Test Ad Copy

When you are running a campaign, whether it be google adwords, or a display campaign, testing your ad copy…and various elements within that ad copy is going to be key. You may know about split testing, but what you also need to know is that it really IS key to your success and that testing my variants is what is going to get you the best results in the end.

Having said that a common error that many make with split testing, is not letting test campaigns run long enough to reach a statistically significate number so that you have an accurate picture of which ads or which variants are the best, and sometimes in the end we can be quite surprised with the results  I consider myself I pretty experience ad copy writer, and can usually predict which ad is likely to win, but it is still easy to get surprised by test results when properly tabulated. The lesson in the end though is to let your tests to run long enough so that the results are statistically accurate.

Another factor to consider is your audience, and I don’t just mean all your ideal customers, which you should also have a specific plan for as well, but also in some cases various subgroups or targets within your primary group. For example, maybe you are advertising on several sites, and they all have those that would be your ideal customers.  It is still possible however, that while they all need your product or service, that an aspect of what speaks to them is different, maybe one group is men and another is women, or maybe you know the audience from the one site needs your product for reason A and another site for Reason B, or various other demographic/psychographic variables which still remain for your ideal customer aka what should be your target audience.

For this reason the ads that are successful on some sites may not be as successful on others if you are doing a run of various sites, through google or otherwise.  Break them down into subgroups and target each more specifically and you may find quite a change in results, resulting in higher relevance and lower ad costs on places like Google.

Have A Quality Landing Page

Whatever method you use to get traffic to your site, it is worthless if they bounce, and take no further action.  Also remember that first impressions count, so if the visitor left for various reasons that could make it unappealing, then you are going to lose a lot of opportunities.

There is actually various testing software that can also test your landing pages so you find the ideal copy for your landing page.  Here are a few primary considerations you should keep in mind.

• content (is it informative, is the message going to reach your ideal audience?)
• easy site navigation, you need to make it easy as possible to navigate through your site, and get them to the end result you want them to take
• this bring up the point of visible and clear calls to action, you must not only have them, but sometimes testing variables on your call to action can make a big difference as well.
• all of your sign up link, opt in forms, etc need to be offered above the fold, meaning the done need to scroll down a long page to reach the result.
• content and calls to action should be easy to read, with clear contrasts to the background, and while subjective the page should have a clean professional look, the higher end your target audience, the more important the professional appearance becomes.
• list briefly and clearly on your landing page why your site/product/service, etc is the ideal choice for your prospect.  This is something that should be clearly outline, usually in bold and/ with bullets

Don’t Make Your Copy Misleading

This seems pretty obvious, but sometimes in the process of making ads enticing so they will be clicked on, what they click on is not at all what your ideal prospects expect, this is going to be bad for you, as you lose all these potential conversions because from a sales psychology perspective, they are simply not prepared nor ready for what your landing page and site were going to present, resulting in clicks with really poor conversions.  You need your visitors in the right mindset and reach them at the right time, for them to take action.

It comes down to your prospect being prepared and in the right mindset with what they are about to be presented. So it may not be deceptive, so much as not congruent. Either way, this can have negative impact on conversions, so should be monitored and tested closely.

Create Different Banner Sizes

When running banner ad campaigns, you want to test and provide various sizes.   For one thing, different sizes place your ads on different part of the website on which the ads are served, you may find that location may result in a significant difference in response compared to another size for this reason.  It is also important to rem em be that what sizes various sites except or have available inventory on can vary, so you want to leave your options open.

One very important thing I want to mention here however, is make sure that you set your frequency to one when you start doing banner retargeting.  If only paying PPC it can seem smart to some if you don’t set limits on frequency, but studies show there is a clear rule of diminishing returns on regarding when done incorrectly.  The most common issue many face is you will look like a crazy stalker, if you have 8 ads that appear all at once on a page, when someone visits a page with plenty of inventory to display, which can frequently happen with retargeting.  So you send a rather annoying impression, rather than a reminder in the back of their mind that they need to get back to your site and take action, like you intend.  Studies have shown this can be a major problem and create bad opinions of your site, brand or product/service if deluged with many ads at one, with one study with many describing as “creepy.”

Use Analytic Tools

You clearly need to test and retest all aspects possible of your marketing campaign, and one way you are going to achieve this is through clear analytic tools.  But don’t  just use analytic, learn from them, and make best use of them rather than sometimes sitting on data as can sometimes happen when busy.  You can find out exactly where you best traffic is coming from, which ads are converting best, and what keywords and bringing the traffic and if that traffic is good quality or poor.  This is because one again, lots of traffic, doesn’t mean lots of converting traffic and some or much could be poor.

So hopefully these helpful tips and reminders will help keep you on track as you build your PPC campaign.

No matter what you do, you want to determine how to get traffic, and warm them so that they become beome interested in your products or services.

I recently came across an offer by someone, that has been considered an expert in their market niche, promising everyone that they can provide you hoards of free traffic through a new service they are offering. The question I ask myself, is this traffic that will convert and drive your prospects to the actions you require.

Everyone wants a free or cheap traffic source.  But take a closer look at the results you are actually getting.

Here’s the reality:

That free traffic you are always running after doesn’t really exist.

This many seem like a harsh reality, and different from what some may claim, but lets remember, you want targeted traffic from your ideal customers.  I can drive massive amounts of traffic to your site at low cost, but this doesn’t mean they will ever take the action you are trying to achieve and convert.

In the end there is no such thing as free traffic.  There are certainly traffic tactics you can use to get you exposure to your target market, but in reality this also isn’t really FREE traffic.  In  getting this traffic you must either spend considerable amount of time to achieve it, which in my book isn’t even close to free, or hire someone else to do it.  Many of the really cheap traffic sources, can also provide little in the way of conversions, and completely throw off any serious testing you are doing.  So always include source in all of your testing and tracking, so it remain clear.

In the end there is no such thing as free traffic.  There are certainly traffic tactics you can use to get you exposure to your target market, but in reality this also isn’t really FREE traffic.  In  getting this traffic you must either spend considrable amount of time to achieve it, which in my book isn’t even close to free, or hire someone else to do it.  Many of the cheap traffic sources buy can also provide little in the way of conversions, and completely throw off any serious testing you are doing.

When you buy cheap traffic, take a really close look at your metrics, and compare to more relible sources, and see if in the end you are getting the bargin you had hoped for.

There Is No Easy Answer

If you are getting good qualified traffic, then you are paying for it in one way or the other either through time and effort, or ultilizing quality traffic sources.

Remember as always you want a clear market to message match, and reaching the ideal prospect for your product or service, and not just a general mass of traffic that does little to add to your bottom line.  All traffic is NOT created equal.

If you don’t have the capital you need for your campaign, then there are lead generation methods you can use, but getting the right traffic still takes time and effort, so not free.

So end the end, comapre your traffic sources and determine what is giving the truly best ROI, whether through time intensive efforts, or buys from various traffic sources, and use those that provide the best end result based on metrics and your REAL ROI.

While, clearly there are many more technical concerns facing email today, lets take another look at the facts from a different angle, and see if much of it is just a matter of approach.

A new study based on market research by Blue Hornet, an ESP, shows that at least as of February of this year, that most people are perfectly willing to receive email.

Contemplate this however, according to the study what makes 95% of consumers responsive to email is the fact they want special offers and discounts. The average consumer is willing to provide email with the assumption that they will get something out of it, mainly in exchange to receive FUTURE discounts or special offers.

Here is something else to consider. In the general consumer market however, it also shows that about 75% percent of average consumers believe it is “inappropriate” to receive emails once the initial transaction has taken place, unless there are more transactions coming in the pipeline.

Now hearing such a statement sounds quite negative for most marketers who simply continually send offers to customers and prospects. Lets look a bit deeper though, and see where the opportunity lies…

While they say the hate getting post sale emails, what people say and do are often 2 different things: the exception to the rule is over 50% of respondents stated they enjoy receiving emails from brands they LOVE and receiving *specific* product or service updates.

So what does this all mean for you?

The biggest lesson and takeaway is that people open and respond to email from those brands and companies they “love”, trust, and formed relationships with. Them simply knowing you or buying your products usually isn’t enough for them to take action to open or click through emails. Study indicates without this relationship, they will actually resent ongoing emails from you.

Furthermore, this means for most marketers, that defined product lines with clear affinity need to be built around Brand X (your brand) and what it represents within its marketplace to your ideal prospect and repeat customer. Best response will come through consistently offering them related products. They need to know who you are and represent in the marketplace, for them to be able to build that relationship with you. The study also clearly shows their interest is regarding the products they have already shown interest in or purchased, and any additional future offers should provide a “vip customer” discount to drive action.

Take a moment, look at your processes, and see how they can be improved based on information from studies like this.  Do you build that relationship with your prospects?  Do you provide them special offers and discounts for being a”VIP” buyer or subscriber?  These are some things that may have a substantial impact on your bottom line.

Much has changed in the last 17 or so “internet years,”  however one thing that didn’t change fast enough is Yahoo, it least in maintaining what was once a dominate place within the digital market.

In recent history, they have given up much of their ground to both Google and Facebook.

As finger pointing died down among key investors and board members recently, new CEO Scott “Scott Who?” Thompson was named 3 months ago, who is actually a former Paypal president.  Now there has been a major announcement, which may hold some hope for Yahoo.  Looks like Mr Thompson is refocusing on what should have been their core mission all along, and stated that they are cutting 2000 jobs from Yahoo.   As Mr Thompson explains: “Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo…”,  “We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses” for those that have completely forgotten what made Yahoo highly successful at one point in the first place, he goes on to explain they are redeploying their efforts to their most urgent priorities. ” Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first — and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal”.  Among other statements he commented that they plan on being much more bold and swift in taking new actions in this core focus, in hopes to get back into the forefront.

They have already made alliances with MSN and AOL regarding access to unsold ad inventory, which may be a boon for some display marketers that want to investigate this.  In the fall Yahoo also announced that, it has formed an alliance with ABC, who are now creating a online video-news series.  We will see where that goes within this new focus.

The key facts are that while once the leader in online advertising, Yahoo has lost significant ground,  in recent years. In a recent conversation with Ad Age, a Yahoo exec even said that the company has accepted that Google and Facebook have “won.”  Not sure where that exec is now, but Yahoo’s opportunity, this person said, lies in finding a way to grab  TV ad dollars as they come online. No doubt that thought remains, and is certainly a true statement in fact, but it looks like it is possible they may be extending that focus to include other online advertisers.

While many of the key Madison Avenue players, never even heard of Paypal, and have been dubious of Mr Thompson lack of advertising experience, he has made numerous decisions, and has deferred key advertising based decisions to other key Yahoo execs, for their perspective, since it is outside his expertise.

For me, I am hopeful of this new focus and hope that Yahoo can once again become a key display ad player, to give us, as marketers, additional opportunities and compete with Google and Facebook to help  keep ad prices down.  In the end we shall see Mr Thompson is able to achieve his goals in focusing on this core business.

Some insiders have been reported in saying that there is a massive course correction taking place.  At the same time there do seem to be concerns about that relationship with Microsoft, which has been a failure from their perspective in they had hoped to drive up ad prices, however for those  buying ad inventory, this is not a bad thing.  They also seem to feel that Right Media Network is under-performing and are trying to determine what they must do with it, or how to fix the problem.  It does appear unlikely that it will be sold, however.

So in the end, it does sound like Yahoo may be getting itself on the right track, but hopefully they will not back down from some of their ad inventory share agreements, and continue to develop Right Media, to get more features online similar with that of Google, as part of these moves. Hopefully, we will then soon see more viable options  within the display advertising inventory space.

No I am NOT referring to the secret underground marketing seminar being held by promoter Yanik Silver that many entrepreneur level marketers are attending… I am talking about the first-ever Facebook Marketing Conference.

Now most users will not even notice, but at the top of the agenda was “Premium” , which is a new suite of products for marketers designed to leverage FBs access to your friends AND friends of friends. And anyone familiar with the concept of “seven degrees of separation” from just about anyone, should realize the importance of access to friends of friends, and what that can mean for any business.

This is important because it potentially can effect how marketing is done with Facebook, because there are some subtle changes that * Facebook * believes enable marketers to evolve their relationship with consumers beyond advertising and into “stories.”  So what is the story of YOUR brand?  What is the story for your brands products or services?  Think about that as you read on.

The following is a breakdown of everything Facebook announced, in a quick bullet format:

New ad products did Facebook announced:

• Ads that appear in News Feeds
• Ads that run on the right-hand side of your homepage
• Ads within the News Feed on your mobile device
• Ads that appear when you log out
• Offers

BUT… In  reality, only the log-out ads and Offers are really new.  News Feed ads have been out since early January, the right-hand page ads have run since last year and the mobile ads had been previously reported elsewhere.

Offers, which is actually free to advertiser, lets brands share discounts and promotions to their fans within Facebook.  Stop and think about that for a moment and how you can put that to use in your business.

Right-hand ads? Wait, what’s new about them?

Most of  the right-hand Ads section of the homepage, you have been seeing, are what Facebook calls “Marketplace” ads, which are usually direct-response ads. The new Premium ads in  that space will originate from a brand’s page and won’t be your typical ad. Often they’ll consist of a status updates, or something like a new video upload rather than a typical banner display ad.

So a prospect won’t see the ad unless they “like” the brand or their friend does?

Not necessarily. Someone is much more likely to see one of the ads if that’s the case, but they might see one even if they or their friends aren’t fans of any particular brand (page).

Is that  true of the News Feed ads as well?

No, someone will only see one of those if they or their friend interacted with a brand Page.

So advertisers are paying for those News Feed ads?

Well…not always. Sometimes they will run in the News Feed organically, just like any other status update. At other times, they will be paid for, but someone will still only see the ad if they or their friend interacted with the brand. Confused yet?

Will I still have those Marketplace ads?

Yes.

How are advertisers paying for the Premium ads?

Not by the click-through. While that’s still the model for Marketplace ads, Premium ads are based on cpm impressions and reach. In fact, Facebook  is looking for ways that they cab de-emphasize click-throughs, and has teamed up with partners like Neilson to do it.  Remember it is all about the money for Facebook, however I believe that smart direct response marketers will be able to take advantage of the service when managed properly and track much like other cpm display ad resources, testing will tell.

Why?

In FB’s eyes click-through rates for Facebook ads are pretty low. Facebook has argued that CTRs are a poor and even irrelevant measure of an ad’s performance. They are dreaming and hoping for old TV and magazine style ad models, and have stated that.

Without CTRs, how do advertisers know their ads worked?

Well smart direct marketers should know the answer to this, but according to Facebook, they are using mixed-media modeling  with some big brand clients, to demonstrate an ad campaign’s efficacy. The company is working with advertisers on other ways to show a Facebook campaign moved the needle on sales or awareness — whatever the goal might be.

What is Reach Generator?

Reach Generator is a new tool designed to let brands reach all their fans. The average post by a brand (or a person) only reaches 16% of such fans for various reasons, like the number of times you log on and the number of people and brands in your network. Reach Generator lets advertisers reach the other 86% by rerunning status updates as ads aimed at those fans.

Why is Facebook putting so much emphasis on brand Pages?

Facebook’s philosophy plays a lot into this when talking about advertising like this.  The company believes brands should be indistinguishable from your Facebook friends. That is, if they post something interesting, it should get pickup in your feed, but if they post something boring, it should not. They want advertisers to ENGAGE members, and build relationships with them, and for them to be rewarded by doing so, and punished for not.

By offering greater engagement and reach for brands with well-run Facebook brand Pages, Facebook hopes to make it the cornerstone of any marketer’s outreach and ensure that brands offer engaging content.

What could derail this?

Lots of things. Users might get sick of seeing so much content from brands and decide to withdraw their Like, the method may turn out to be ineffective for savvy direct marketers based on ad costs.  Status update-based ads could prove ineffective in the long run.   It is always possible smart advertisers might decide that click-throughs actually were a good measure of ad performance for FB ads. Ultimately, market testing of ROI and consumer opinion of the ads will have the final say.

So once again, think about the story of your brand and how you can make use of Facebook’s philosophy to build customer relationships, increase ad value, and reduce cost for your business.

If you have not heard, yesterday a range of media outlets including WSJ and Mashable released reports that Jimmy Kimmel is making up to 2 Million dollars a year via his youtube channel videos  in the form of  skits, fake fights, and a variety of content which creates fans for him, and even drives traffic to his OFFLINE TV show on a regular basis. What is so cool about this is that it is recycled content released on the air for his TV show, so is not even really generating new content and typically running under five minutes each.  As a matter of fact while in the past year EVERY OTHER major “late night” talk show has lost significant portions of their audience ranging from a 9% loss for Late Night legend David Letterman, to a staggering 42% loss for some other leading late night shows,  Jimmy Kimmel has actually INCREASED his viewership…and this is on top of the projected 2 million through renting content and ads.

Now I certainly don’t think of Jimmy Kimmel as some sort of mastermind, but he is savvy enough to see the importance of creating these videos online.  He has amassed a online audience on top of his existing tv media audience.  He knows the importance of providing this content online, and having a laid out plan and process to create it.  It  has become so popular, that WSJ reports that he complains he sometimes gets “annoyed” about many guest stars asking if they can do a video for the show, to later be included in online video.

This isn’t just blind luck or a flash in the pan either, in December another comedian made news when he made 1 million dollars in just 12 days by selling access directly viewers to him latest comedy routine for only $5.

There is clearly a message here about the growing importance of video within the digital marketplace as a whole, and particularly in digital marketing.   Take a look a the method Jimmy uses, they are a variety of videos all usually around the 5 minute mark to keep up with the short attention span of today’s world.  I have been talking about this for about 5 years now, and the growing value and conversions created through video, and while statistics proved my point, many once thought I was crazy.  Now many experts expound upon the virtues of digital video in marketing.  Now while Jimmy Kimmel certainly demonstrates on facet in the value of video, in growing your audience and reputation, but there many other video opportunities out there for you and your business.  This builds your reputation and brand, can create fans for you and your products/services, drives traffic,  and more highly converts visitors.

So it does seem like marketers are starting to catch on to the value of video marketing in various forms, and clearly part of the next evolution of both digital and direct marketing.  Make sure you develop a clear plan for your business on how you can take best advantage of this to grow your business.

In your marketing and sales process, it is often getting qualified leads and customers that tends to be the most costly or difficult within your processes (your funnel).  Once you have achieved that, you want to build a relationship with your customers, and nurture that.  Instead of making the mistake of making it only about a pitch.

So lets take a look a a few things you should remember:

This is why you don’t want to simply have a one night stand.  This means simply trying to “close the deal” with pitches without building a relationship by providing value and show them what you stand for in the market place.  You want to increase the lifetime value of your customers and prospects, and have them come back to you again and again now that you have filled their need.
Your customers are a valuable commodity, to be treated with respect.  You don’t want to simply continuously blast them with offers if you want them to be responsive.  Yet, the truth is I see many marketers doing exactly this.  Provide them value, then once every few messages provide the pitch.

If you are the face of your brand, you need to be sure that it gets in front of your customers and see that there is a personal touch.  Provide them ongoing value, and they will keep coming back to you within your marketplace.  If not, it is still key that your brand still has a clear message to your customers, and continues to provide value.  Remember the old rule of thumb that it takes 7-12 contacts with a prospect to close a sale.
If you are interacting with your prospects and customers on Facebook, know that your fans want to interact with you, not be marketed to.  The moral of No one night stands is particularly important in social media.  Remember it is “social media,” you wouldn’t run into a party and start trying to sell everyone, and you must take a similar approach when interacting in social media, think first about what they can learn about you to make a good decision, or interact with you, so they WANT to take further action with you.

Know why your prospect come, and why customers buy your brands product or service.  This means you need to know the real full resason that your customers make that buying decision and what is the complete need you are filling.  It is very easy for people to make assumptions about their customers, but lets dig a bit deeper and you will discover a lot more profit potential by indetifing your market.  Just because a person decides to participate in a fat loss program doesn’t simply mean that they think they are fat.  Why are they doing this?  It may be that the want to FEEL healther, be more appealing to the opposite sex/spouse, or feel more confident with friends perceptions of them.  This is a simple example, but whatever you provide, knowing the specifics of the need you are really filling will put you far ahead of your competion.

Understand that perception often become reality when it comes to marketing and what people think of your brand.  If they have a bad experience they are likely to continue to have a bad perception, if they have a good opinion, then it is likely that it will perceive their contact with you as more positive.  So be sure you have control and know what perception you are creating within your marketspace, is it a good perception or a bad one?  Truth is that within marketing, how they perceive you will have a big effect on the conversion of your product or service.

No more one night stands.  Start thinking about the long term relationship with your customers.  Keep these things in mind, remember that you want to increase the lifetime value of your prospects, and get them coming back to you again and again now that you have them, because THEY know that you can best fill their need within your marketplace.

According to a study released by ThreatMetrix in partnership with the Ponemon Institute, Only 20% have purchased something directly within Facebook, despite ongoing direct exposure to products through Facebook. That this is do in large part to the social nature of Facebook. Consumers are glad to learn about, share opinions, or even be rewarded for interactions with brands they like, however studies indicate that many consumers feel that Facebook is the wrong place to be urged to complete transactions due to its more “social” environment nature, and more likely to distrust motives of brands that do.

In practical terms you could liken it to someone showing up at a gathering of friends and urge everyone to immediately buy a sweater from them, like the cool one they are wearing. Maybe the sweater is cool, and people may want to learn about it in casual discussion, to later make a buying decision. It is not the time, however, to be hawking the actual product.

A separate study, by Oracle, found that whooping 34% of American and Canadian consumers said they would never purchase products via a Facebook page, while only 10% said that they had done so. There is also concerns of security with Facebook stores as a ThreatMetrix /Ponemon Institute study show that 53% of consumers fear that Facebook stores are less secure in protecting them against fraud than typical internet storefronts. Clearly there is a perception issue here.

So does this mean that Facebook order pages and storefronts should be avoided? Certainly not, and there may be special considerations for some direct marketers as well. While Facebook stores may not be best for many brands and companies, it appears to come down to approach. Studies show that the businesses successful with Facebook storefronts are high touch businesses where customers have close relationships with the brand and commonly deal with all customer contacts on a highly personal level and have a one-on-one–relationship, which lends itself to trust. Custom services, personal/consultant type services, and “luxury” type brands are key examples of those that come out on top in studies.

So what does this mean for your business? It means that if you have intentions of selling directly to customers on Facebook, examine your business and the level of relationship with your customers and decide if it is right for you. You must first build a strong relationship, and be able to build higher than usual levels of trust where your brand has a high level of personal touch with your customers and prospects, then you can extend your relationship with direct sales on Facebook in your advertising and marketing campaigns.