While social media is now widely acknowledged as being a necessary component to every business’s marketing strategy, the idea that your sales team should be leveraging social media to help improve sales is a concept that has only recently begun catching on. If your sales team isn’t using social media, then they certainly should now that certain facts have come to light. A recent study by the Aberdeen Research Group revealed that sales representatives that used social selling as a strategy were 79 percent more likely to reach their quota than those who didn’t leverage social selling. Guess what the industry average of representatives that reached their goal was – 43 percent. The following are 5 additional reasons why your sales team should be using social selling as a part of their sales process: Shortening the Sales CycleThe sales cycle has become shorter with the advent of inbound marketing. Buyers do most of the work themselves in terms of becoming acquainted with your products and services as well as doing all the necessary research in order to properly inform them about your brand. Much of this research is done via social media. Prospects will engage in social media by asking their peers questions about your brand. Your sales team should be monitoring this type of social activity, which often happens in forums, in order to respond to any questions or conversations. Just be sure that the responses are thoughtful, useful, and not just product pitches. Generating More LeadsBy establishing a presence on social media, your sales team will be able to better identify leads by monitoring social discussions about your brand. By listening to what people are saying and jumping in on conversations when appropriate, it becomes easier to identify qualified leads, making it easier to close sales when the time is right. Building RelationshipsBy building relationships with people via social media, your sales team can help to build trust in your brand. By speaking with and engaging with not only individuals, but other companies as well, you’ll help to strengthen the identity of your brand. People and companies are more likely to do business with you if they feel like they know who you are. There are numerous ways that your sales team can accomplish this via social media. They can simply start discussions by posting questions on your social profile page or by tweeting them, or they can create groups on social channels such as LinkedIn or Facebook to which they can invite prospects. There they can ask questions or allow prospects to ask questions, helping to establish their authority while building strong relationships as well. Read more: SaaS - What is it simply? Keep Track of the CompetitionAnother advantage of using social media is that you can keep track of your competitor’s social activities. Many social sites, such as LinkedIn or Twitter, give you the ability to categorize prospects into different segments. One segment should be full of your competitors. Not only can you keep track of your competitors’ advertising campaigns as well as what they are saying to their prospects, you can see what is and what isn’t working for them, which is invaluable information. Increase ProductivitySocial intelligence, which includes being able to monitor discussions about your brand as well as look at the social activity of your prospects, helps to minimize the amount of time that your sales team wastes researching, prospecting and identifying trigger events. If your sales team is properly monitoring social activity regarding your brand, odds are new opportunities will pop up that weren’t present before as well.
It’s become more and more obvious over the last few years that social media isn’t just a necessary tool for your marketing team; it’s also a necessary tool for your sales team. If your sales team isn’t taking advantage of social selling, they should begin doing so immediately. Read more: Are Expired Domain Miners Worth It
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