Have you ever caught yourself daydreaming about being able to increase the foot traffic in your store with the click of a button? If your pet business is active on social media, you can do just that simply by using Facebook Live for business (and it’s not as scary as you think!).
We’ve watched hundreds of Pet Bosses from our Pet Boss Community embrace Facebook Live in their businesses as a new, exciting way to engage with customers and sell more stuff! And all it takes is a few minutes and a little creativity. Get ready for your close-up and continue reading for our best tips on how to use Facebook Live for business this week!
Create Your Facebook Live Theme
Before you jump in with both feet (or all four!), set aside a few minutes to think strategically about what kind of event you want to host and how you want your customers to interact with you live on Facebook. You could hop on the 2020 trend of virtual events and offer up a virtual Paw Party complete with party hats and celebratory treats to show off. Or you could create an interactive game show environment where participants win gift certificates or coupons to use within an hour of the live event. Or maybe your store’s resident pet wants to host a happy hour for your customer’s animals. Choose a theme that works best for you!
Once you’ve decided on a theme, you will need to set a date and start promoting it in-store and on social media. Your goal is to make money with this event, so there’s no such thing as too many people knowing about it.
Before we move on to your next step, we want to reiterate how important it is to plan for your Facebook Live theme. Having an outline, or a list of benchmarks to hit throughout your event, will help you stay organized to serve your audience better and keep your nerves at bay once you hit that “Go Live!” button.
Decide How and What to Sell During the Facebook Live Event
Once you go live, it’ll be thrilling to see your viewer numbers go up, but it’ll be even more exciting to move more merchandise in that one hour than you do in an entire business day. That’s why you need to decide how and what you’re going to offer when using Facebook Live for business.
Make a list of the items you want to promote during the event and pull samples to show off to your audience. Refer back to your theme and see if there are any connections you can make with your in-store items to create a buying experience that is unique to your event.
If you’re hosting a happy hour, put together a “flight” of dog toys that look like beer. Or maybe you want to go the game show route? Put together a prize wheel your audience can “spin” if they spend over $50.
While you’re getting your merchandise ready for your big debut, enlist the help of at least two assistants that you can rely on to help you show off the goods. They will also need to help you keep up with promotions, discounts, comments, order requests and questions because once you’re “on-air”, time will fly by!
Make Your Facebook Live Event Profitable
Now that you’ve decided how and what to sell during your Facebook Live event and you’ve enlisted the backstage assistants to help, you’re ready to determine how you’ll present the items and what urgent offer you’ll use to motivate people to buy.
Try starting with a limited-time discount on big-ticket items or offering up a limited quantity of your best-sellers and event-specific bundles. Another clever idea is to use discounts as door prizes with a short expiration window to encourage customers to take advantage of a good deal.
The last thing to think through is how you will keep track of orders and accept payments. You have many convenient payment options at your disposal, but try to make it easy for your customers. We highly recommend the platform Comment Sold to really accelerate your success. You can also just use private messages to gather phone numbers or emails to follow up, have your customers call to pay over the phone, via your online store or Paypal so customers won’t forget to complete their purchases.
Are your wheels already starting to turn with fun Facebook Live for business ideas? We thought so! While you’re jotting them down, think about how you can use the same strategy on Instagram, too. With a little bit of planning, you will be ready to make your Facebook Live debut in no time!
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