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Date
2 May 2017
Author
Delphine Duclos
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The digital transformation has revolutionized the purchasing decision. Now, every buyer researches online even before meeting a salesperson. Social Selling is an additional channel that complements traditional sales techniques: it allows sales teams to generate more leads, reduce the sales cycle, and potentially better attract prospects in the pre-purchase phase, thereby increasing conversions. Here are 3 tips for implementing an effective social selling strategy within your team.
Carefully Select and Optimize Profiles on Social Media
For your sales representatives, Social Selling involves making their social media profiles available to the company. Not everyone will necessarily be ready to take this step. Initially, it’s about identifying sales reps who might be interested in this channel. Start by looking at their current profiles: do they already have a presence on social media? Which ones? How do they use them? Do they monitor Twitter or LinkedIn? Do they already share professional content? Then invite those who are willing to embrace Social Selling. There’s no point in imposing this practice, otherwise the results will never follow, and it could even harm the company’s online image.
One crucial point must be addressed from the outset: the professional/personal boundary. Show the benefits and consequences of Social Selling. For example, present it as a real gain in experience for sales reps, who enrich themselves on social media with best practices and industry news. Also explain that Social Selling is an excellent way for the company to integrate sales teams and motivate them around a new, increasingly widespread practice.
Finally, once you have your base of available social media profiles, train them. Show them best practices for each network, the levers to optimize their online engagement, and the right keywords to adopt based on their expertise. Implement training waves and ongoing support for your teams throughout their learning process.
Select Quality Content to Share
The essence of Social Selling lies in the content that will be shared by your sales reps – as well as the interactions that will result from it. Before creating content, conduct an audit of available or internally generated content. Your company may already have a blog or White Papers that highlight your expertise. You can also draw on client case studies that illustrate your expertise and can inspire potential prospects once shared online.
Monitoring is an essential step in Social Selling, to find relevant content to share and to keep up with market news. Identify media and blogs that regularly publish on your core business, but also target general news sites to broaden your readership and thus your target audience. Social media is full of specialized monitoring profiles; follow them and suggest your teams subscribe to these influencers. Subscribe to relevant newsletters on your topics and schedule daily alerts so you don’t miss any news from your sector. Finally, on LinkedIn, participate in thematic groups to follow conversations, discover interesting content, of course, but also to identify the expectations and needs of your future clients/prospects. Regularly encourage your Social Sellers to do the same.
The identified and shared content must position the salesperson, and therefore your company, as an industry “expert”. They must also reassure and guide the potential buyer through their purchasing process.
Measure Social Selling Results
Once this strategy is implemented and deployed, as with any marketing action, it is then necessary to measure its effects. The contribution of Social Selling to your activity cannot be measured by a single criterion but through a set of statistics that will allow you to monitor and manage this strategy.
There are, of course, the “classic” criteria, such as audience gain on your site, the number of newsletter subscriptions generated, or the number of followers gained on Twitter or LinkedIn, for example. Train your sales reps to identify these criteria and hold regular meetings on your Social Selling strategy to correct or optimize their online presence.
Other factors must also be observed, such as the number of online contacts, calls directly resulting from Social Selling, or the number of downloads of your White Papers.
In B2B, 57% of purchasing decisions are made long before the first contact with your salesperson. It’s up to you, sales manager, to implement a relevant and effective Social Selling strategy to put your teams in the best conditions to convert these prospects into clients.
To complement these tips, watch an interesting video from Hub Day, by the Head of Social Selling Microsoft France!
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Date
2 May 2017
Author
Delphine Duclos