In the era of digitalization, the social selling campaign is no longer just an option, this strategy has become essential for B2B or B2C companies, medium or small. Social networks are excellent ways to gain leads and retain customers. On these social platforms, you can make yourself known to your prospects or customers in a simple and effective way. You can also monitor your field of activity and that of your competitors.
How to define social selling?
Quite simply, social selling is an art of exploiting different social media platforms to find potential customers while ensuring that your business engages in interactions by supporting 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 appropriate time. A moment which 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 research. As a result, the consideration period will be reduced, as social media platforms have the ability to catalyze the purchasing intentions of your prospects.
Generate more qualified leads
Within your company, as sales prospecting managers will be continually present on social networks, they will be able to monitor, learn, listen and engage your services or products with your targets.
Loyalty of your customers
Using a CRM, you generate leads, but in addition, social selling will allow you to maintain relationships 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 further arouse their interests. Offer them useful content that answers their questions. Consumers will show loyalty to your brand if you work on this well.
This relationship must be stable and continuous. Remember, a satisfied customer will let people 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.
READ ALSO: Optimize your marketing strategy with scoring
What are the right steps to adapt for social selling?
In the field of Digital Marketing, it has been shown that the success of many companies relies on social selling, but you already have to excel in the field. More efficient and more productive, salespeople who demonstrate strong success in the field create more opportunities by having a 51% probability of reaching their quota. In order to increase your chances of converting prospects into customers and closing sales to them, you must carefully concoct your social selling strategy. Here are the main points.
Target your prospects
Defining your buyer personas is a key element of your social selling strategy. This targeting will give you access to a more precise CRM database. You can define your targets using their interests and the best time to contact them. Cold prospecting is no longer an effective practice today. You have to choose the right moment to intervene and sell.
The first contact: an important step
Your prospects are very active during the decision-making phase. During this phase, they carry out multiple searches on Google, consult the opinions of their professional network and/or their friends, compare products or services similar to yours on social networks or forums.
So, during your different approaches, whether from a B2B or B2C emailing campaign or via telephone calls, you must anticipate the first contact. Keep in mind that your prospect already knows what he wants and what he expects 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 essential. So you have to know how to give in order to receive. Your content can be text, video, audio, etc., but the fact is that you need to provide content that will clearly set you apart from your competitors. Direct 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 most affected.
Sales enablement
The aim of sales enablement is to improve sales forces using numerous tools which are divided into three categories, namely:
- Technological tools such as digital tools,
- The training provided to the sales teams,
- Digital content.
Any company concerned about the effectiveness of its sales techniques necessarily adopts social selling; the combination of these three tools must however be studied, they must be aligned and coherent.
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 there is more than important. Build your credibility with your prospects, expand your network and most importantly, be “sociable” in your groups. It is also practical to use LinkedIn automation to sell your services on this professional social network, particularly in B2B.
Social selling brings together many steps that you need to take and establish effectively. If you succeed with your strategy, you can be sure that lead acquisition, conversion of prospects into customers and your sales force will improve.
—————————
Magileads is prospecting automation software that allows you to easily manage all the complex aspects of your marketing processes.
Test Magileads for free in 14 days. Click here.
Or book a demo to see how it works. Click here.
