In the era of digitalization, the social selling campaign is no longer presented as just an option, this strategy has become essential for B2B or B2C companies, medium or small. Social media is a great way to win leads and retain customers. At the level of these social platforms, you can make yourself known by your prospects or your customers, in a simple and effective way. Also, you can monitor your field of activity and that of your competitors.
How to define social selling?
Quite simply, social selling is an art of exploiting the various social media platforms in order to find potential customers while ensuring that your company engages in interactions by accompanying them step by step. In other words, social selling allows you and your brand to build a relationship with your prospects in order to convert them into customers later. It's not enough to bombard your new contacts with messages, but to start conversations with them at an opportune time. At the moment that must also be strategic.
Why establish a social selling strategy?
A shortening of the sales cycle
According to studies conducted by Retailing Today, around 81% of consumers conduct multiple pre-purchase searches. By this, the cooling-off period will be reduced, as social media platforms have the ability to catalyze the purchase intentions of your prospects.
Generate more qualified leads
Within your company, as those responsible for commercial prospecting will be continuously present on social networks, they will be able to monitor, inquire, listen and engage your services or products with your targets.
Customer loyalty
Using a CRM , you generate leads, but in addition, social selling will allow you to maintain the relationship and contact with your customers and prospects in a non-intrusive way. The content of what you would share with them are the main assets that will arouse their interests more. Offer them useful content that answers their questions. Consumers will show loyalty to your brand if you work this point well.
This relationship must be stable and ongoing. Remember that a satisfied customer will let us know. The culmination of the benefits of social selling lies in viral marketing .
Significantly improved productivity
According to the giant Forbes, 78% of marketers who use social networks have sales exceeding those of their competitors.
What are the right steps to adapt for a social sale?
In the field of digital marketing , it has been shown that the success of many companies is based on social selling, but you must already excel in the field. More efficient and productive, highly successful sellers create more opportunities with a 51% chance of meeting their quota. In order to increase your chances of converting prospects into customers and closing sales with them, you must carefully concoct your social selling strategy. Here are the highlights.
Target your prospects
The definition of your buyer personas is a key element of your social selling strategy. This targeting will give you access to a more accurate CRM database. You can define your targets using their interests and when to contact them. Cold prospecting is no longer an effective practice today. It is necessary to choose the right time to proceed with an intervention and sell.
The first contact: an important step
Your prospects are very active during the decision-making phase. During this phase, they perform multiple searches on Google, consult the opinions of their professional network and/or friends, compare similar products or services to yours with social networks or forums.
Thus, during your different approaches, whether from a B2B or B2C emailing campaign or via phone calls, you must anticipate the first contact. Keep in mind that your prospect already knows what they want and expect from you. The right way to seduce them would then be to be present alongside your prospects throughout their reflection phase and while giving answers to questions that could intrigue them. His final decision will largely depend on this.
Make sure you present personalized content
Content strategy is paramount. Like what, you have to know how to offer to receive. Your content can be text, video, audio, etc., but the fact is that you need to give content that will clearly set you apart from your competitors. Orient this content according to the needs of your leads.
Trends in social selling
Employee advocacy
In order to increase your company's sales force, employee advocacy focuses on mobilizing employees to be ambassadors for your brand. Medium and large companies are the most affected.
Sales enablement
Sales enablement aims to improve the sales force using many tools that fall into three categories, namely:
- Technological tools such as the digital tool,
- The training of the sales teams,
- Digital content.
Any company concerned about the effectiveness of its sales techniques must adopt social selling, the combination of these three tools must however be studied, they must be aligned and consistent.
How to succeed in social selling on LinkedIn?
As 50% of B2B buyers use LinkedIn to decide on their purchases, developing your social selling strategy is more than important. Build your credibility with your prospects, expand your network and most importantly, be “sociable” at the level of your groups. It is also convenient to use LinkedIn automation to sell your services on this professional social network, especially in B2B.
Social selling includes many steps that you need to go through and establish effectively. If you succeed in your strategy, be sure that lead acquisition, conversion of prospects into customers, and your sales force will improve.
