Sales – Daoyuan Li

Since last week I’ve been investigating how to efficiently promote our website (yabroad.com). Our Facebook page got 139 likes a week ago, and now we have 175. Among the 36 new likes, 22 are from two Facebook campaigns. The first campaign cost 15 dollars and earned 20 likes, averaging 0.75 dollars per like with a click-through rate of 0.290%. In a way this is affordable and more efficiently than stand at international students’ dormitory in Shanghai and spread flyers. Three of us probably sent out around 100 flyers to international students but got nothing to our Facebook page nor website. The first campaign focused on gaining new likes and it went quite well; our second campaign cost 5 dollars, promoting a video post with a goal to earn new likes. This campaign boosted another 2,169 reach, 143 clicks and 2 new likes. Had the video been more engaging, probably we could have gotten more clicks, shares and likes. Since Facebook users nowadays are exposed more and more to various contents, it’s become increasingly difficult to get users engaged.

In the meanwhile, we also launched three campaigns on Google Adwords. So far we got 30 clicks and cost about 40 dollars. The average CPC is $1.36 — almost twice of that for FB, but the conversion rate is zero. No one has applied or enquired our pages (maybe due to the low volume). Google Adwords is different from Facebook. On Facebook you attract people to your FB page but not your website; whereas Google takes visitors directly to your website. FB leaves you a space for imagination, though. Once you get a page like from someone, he/she will be able to see the updates your page posts.

Suppose the Google CPC is twice of Facebook CPC, if one in two earned FB followers click one of our promoted posts, FB is doing better. That does not sound like a issue. I’d place all my bet on Facebook and maybe time to buy FB shares?

We also tried to promote on LinkedIn but failed to find appropriate ways. LinkedIn is mainly for serious jobs, not internships. Instagram neither, there seems to be a lot of robots on Instagram; it’s not clear for us to find a way to promote ourselves, either. So for the moment, we only consider Facebook and Google. Oh no, Facebook is our focus and Google is not helping much, but we still need to spend the remaining 90 dollars we got from a coupon, slowly.

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We went to attend the Expat Show Shanghai this weekend trying to promote our Yabroad Open Platform. In the show we have to talk to different international people that may be interested in our business. Our targeting group is international youngsters who might be interested in coming to and living in China for internships, studies, traveling, or volunteer works. Unfortunately there were not many people within our target group in the Expat Show: not so many international youngsters came to the show. But we thought it might be worthy of convincing those mid-aged people to get interested in us. We went to speak with them and give them our flyers. I successfully sent out around 80 flyers in the morning and was nominated as the CFO (Chief Flyer Officer) by my team. Here’s what I’ve learnt:

Stand close to the entrance. When people come to a show they may receive as many as hundreds of flyers, so it is important to talk to them as early as possible. Waiting for audience at the entrance has many benefits: they are not bored or exhausted (yet); it impossible to escape from you when they have to enter from the entrance; if people are interested in your business you can tell them where your stand is and they will remember your business when they come to your stand.
Block the way. It may sound nasty but you can do it under camouflage. For example, simply stand in a narrow hallway and slightly stretch out, like bowing slightly may make you appear more politely. If you block people’s way and are smiling at someone, he/she has to listen to you.
Observe and listen. Make eye contact and speak with people you feel comfort with. Generally, women are less likely to refuse your attempt to talk with them. In the meanwhile, listen to what people are talking about. For instance, I heard someone calling his friend “Patrik” with a Swedish accent, then I just asked him if he comes from Sweden. It turned out he is from Finland. Me too! Then I introduced him our business and he seemed interested.
Smile, relate, compliment. Nobody likes a poker face when talked to; smile and people will get pleased. There are many occasions when I ask people where they are from, and I’ll respond “Hey! I’ve been/studied there!” or “My girlfriend is studying there!”. Then people may start to ask you questions like “how do you like it there”. Just compliment them. Then introduce them your business. Hard to refuse.

Overall I think the experience was great. I got to know more about our end customers and how to introduce our business in the shortest time, as well as how to communicate with potential customers and talk with strangers. And hey, being a CFO is not difficult! 😀

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Tag: Sales

Facebook vs. Google advertisements

Chief Flyer Officer a.k.a. CFO