Table of Contents
- What does social selling really mean?
- Why social selling?
- Follow these steps to successfully implement social selling
- Conclusion
- About us
"Social Selling" is the hot new sales and marketing approach today and it is being used more and more frequently. Companies that have already integrated social selling into their sales process achieve significantly better results than their competitors.
But just because the term "social selling" includes the word "buy", it doesn't mean that you go on social media and openly send offers to all of your contacts. Basically, it's not about actively selling on social networks, it's more about building authentic relationships with potential customers.
What does social selling really mean?
Social Selling is a new approach to using social media as a sales channel.
It's the perfect combination of sales and marketing. While previously most companies viewed sales and marketing as isolated, separate areas, social selling requires these two important departments to be fully synchronized.
Social selling includes a cycle of sales and marketing processes:
Sounds like an efficient process, doesn't it? - especially if you take the chance of synergy effects into account.
Why social selling?
Social media has not reinvented sales, even if some say it does.
In fact, all the components of sales and marketing are the same as they have been for decades. The biggest difference is that the buyer and their behavior has changed.
Today's shoppers are more distracted, better informed, and are constantly bombarded by advertisements. You need a lot more information than in the past to find the right vendor, spend more time qualifying vendors in the buying process, and bring more factors into the decision-making process.
Social selling makes it possible to draw attention to yourself without writing to customers aggressively. Rather, well-designed content can arouse interest in products that will later lead to a sale.
But contrary to what you may have heard, cold calling isn't dead - neither is trade shows, conferences, SEO, email, or traditional mail. Sales / marketing teams still do it with great success! All of these approaches are still justified.
However, social selling is the most effective way to bridge the gap on your previous / current marketing initiatives - and it brings a lot more reach and consistency to your endeavors.
The use of individual content on social media sets you apart from all of your competitors. Remember, B2B sales are highly relational - and that hasn't changed.
Follow these steps to successfully implement social selling
It is easy to put a lot of energy and resources into social selling, but often it is all wrong. Many people start out with arbitrary actions: they throw in social sales pitches and spam their newsfeeds with irrelevant content and activity, and then call it social selling. The effect? Lots of frustration and a lack of results.
Sooner or later you will have to introduce social selling in your company. You should step ahead of your competitors, and you should get it right.
1. Creation of a social selling strategy
Start right by developing a specific plan with set goals. Engage every single person on your team who is relevant to sales, marketing, business development, and customer care.
2. Build a professional brand
The basis for selling on social media lies in the profiles of the employees. Above all, make sure that your salespeople have a fully completed profile that fits your industry. This includes a decent profile photo with a background image, logo, job experience including a summary and knowledge that has been best confirmed by customers.
3. Provide the right infrastructure
Make sure you have the infrastructure to handle the surge in sales opportunities that result from the increase in views of your website and its content. From the website to the leads to the social media profiles, make sure you don't miss any areas where you could potentially lose an opportunity.
4. Expand your network
For the expansion of the network, a target group should be defined in advance in order to address the right contacts. Then you should use the advanced search of LinkedIn or Facebook to discover potential new contacts by using existing relationships within the network to your advantage.
5. Interact with your contacts
As with traditional sales, it's about building relationships. After a network has been created from the desired target group, your own content should be shared, posts from contacts liked, commented on and also shared in order to attract attention.
After a certain time (1-2 weeks), the potential customer can then be addressed directly. The message should, however, be rather casual, for example a question whether there is interest in further information. If the feedback is positive, the actual sales process can then take place.
Whether you're just starting out or you've already tried social selling, use these steps as a guide.
Conclusion
If you have not yet integrated social selling into your business processes, it is already costing you profits today - which your social media-savvy competitors are raking in instead. Therefore, you should start increasing your social media visibility and creating content for it today.
Social selling is not only trendy now, it will stay that way - and that's a positive thing! You can now become an influencer in your industry for customers and prospects without having to invest a lot of additional money.
We have been dealing with sales on social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook, for years. We therefore know how to proceed in order to increase your sales as sustainably and successfully as possible - without being intrusive!
Send us an inquiry - we will be happy to help.
About us
We show you how you can benefit from digital solutions and actively support you in setting up your digital sales machine. Acquire new customers through authentic marketing without being intrusive.
Send us a request - we will be happy to help.
Written by Jakob Etzinger
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