What is social selling? Why should you be doing it?
Social selling is a method for developing relationships to build up sales pipelines. It’s the art of using social media to research, connect, understand, and nurture sales prospects – a modern way to build a meaningful relationship with a potential customer. So that, whenever a prospect thinks of a brand when they’re ready to buy, it’s your brand that pops into their minds first.
Social selling isn’t just about gaining access to contacts, but about building good relationships and keeping that relationship in your pocket until the right moment to present yourself as a solution to their problem.
The sole aim is to address your prospects need to make their life easier, not to become an irritant.It allows salespeople to laser-target their prospects and establish a rapport.
Once a salesperson has built up a suitable network there is also the possibility of ditching the practice of cold calling.
Salespeople often mistake social selling as a way to bombard strangers with emails and tweets – this is something you definitely shouldn’t be doing. The world’s largest business organizations are increasingly using social selling tools to win sales throughout their sales journey. 78% of salespeople who engage in social selling outsell their peers who don’t.
Here are a few social selling best practices to help you get started:
Stay active to position your brand
Social selling is primarily a rapport establishment tool that uses your most effective content by sharing relevant information to your prospects, brand-tagging, and being active as a social listener.
You may be tempted to cut corners and save time with automated tools, but these tools are no good for building authentic rapport. Incorporating social bots into marketing is great for customer service, but doesn’t beat a real, live human when it comes to selling.
Staying top-of-mind is vital for an organization to grow and build healthy relationships and being more human, approachable, and relatable is the key.
When your company starts showing up in your customer’s profile when they are looking for expertise in industry – they will start recognizing you as a leader in your field.
Maximize the impact of your social selling strategy by optimizing social media profiles across all networks by presenting yourself as a credible professional.
Plan your actions based on your prospects
Sales success depends on insights and empathy. It should be the primary reason why a salesperson researches their prospect prior to making contact. Pay attention to what your customers and prospects are telling you they want and need – this is invaluable information that can help you craft a personalized message, and is often readily available on their social media pages.
Before you reach out to any of your prospects, make sure to check their followers, and followed lists and groups, to ensure you have not missed out on any mutual connections. If you do have a one, ask your shared contact for an introduction. Always make sure to customize your messages based on the valuable information your prospects share on their professional social media profiles – for example, mention a blog which they shared that you particularly enjoyed.
Engage your prospect with a road map that creates a pipeline
According to research, on average, customers are 57% of the way through their purchase process before they even come in contact with a sales professional – social buying indeed! If you fail to actively engage in social selling, then you’ll fail to show up in your customer’s social purchase research.
Plan your nurture steps and sales flow on engaging and connecting with prospects. Always keep in mind that 53% of customer loyalty is driven by a unique insight delivered by a salesperson. There are no runners-up in social selling. If you are doing it, do it right. This means providing valuable insights at the right time, to the right prospect.
Interact with prospects through the social network without getting too “pitchy”.
Because the goal here in social selling is solely to establish relationships that will eventually lead to a sale.
Establish genuine relationships for the long run
Stay in touch with newly established contacts over the long haul. Pay regular attention to the content that they are posting, and jump in front of them from time to time and let them know you’ve read and appreciated what they have to say – keep reminding them that you are a valuable resource. The most important thing is to be genuine.
If your contact moves to a new company or a new position, send a quick congratulatory note to remind them that you’re a resource for them no matter where they find themselves in the future.
Social selling tools can help provide you with advance notice of things like turnover, and they can help you monitor what your competitors are saying and the responses they receive. This allows you to react faster by spotting competitive movement and opportunities much earlier.
Enhance your social selling with Flobile
Flobile innovates new methodologies with nurturing strategies and social selling sequences that set a rapport with the buyer throughout the buyer’s journey. Flobile sets a tone for successful business connections and conversions and helps clients match the right prospect connections with the right communication strategy.
Flobile allows businesses to build a meaningful relationship with their target audiences and create effective buyer journeys through omnichannel experiences.
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