How Top-Performing Organizations Leverage Social Media and Social Selling to Increase Sales
Let’s face it, how we sell today differs from how we sold even five years ago. Salespeople are finding it harder and harder to engage with decision-makers. Why? What are some reasons, and what can sales and marketing people do about it? Five years ago, we saw 2-5 decision-makers involved in a buying decision. Today, when we conduct voice-of-customer research, we find that 6-10+ people are involved in the buying decision. Decision makers are busy. Most teams have been run very lean since the pandemic, with fewer people being asked to do more. We also see the impact of technology, and top-producing B2B companies have a strong social media presence with salespeople trained in social selling skills to increase sales.
Companies could once achieve high net income by serving customers in their region of the country. However, the IoT has changed the game. When you might have had 2-3 local competitors in your region, today, you are competing with thousands just two clicks away.
Buyer behavior is shifting toward self-serve online, and over 30% of decision-makers are choosing to self-serve. The problem is that when they do, their satisfaction decreases because they often don’t know all the questions and considerations a trained salesperson could provide. Why the race to self-serve: Because salespeople have been behaving badly for years, and it is showing in their results. Salespeople hitting quota have been declining since 2016, and some studies have reported that as many as 90% of B2B salespeople missed quota last year.
Finally, a big reason salespeople are having a more challenging time connecting with decision makers is what I refer to as …
Too Many Salespeople Are Behaving Badly…Too Few Understand Social Selling
Just over 50% of salespeople have never received sales skills training. They have product, application, and company systems training, but they lack sales skills, such as conversational skills that drive revenue. Salespeople who have never been trained in sales skills call decision-makers and give them a terrible experience. Often, they pitch slap customers and prospects without any discovery or qualifying questions.
Florida State conducted a study with buyers, asking them in a 60-minute meeting with a salesperson how many of those minutes were valuable to them.
Are you ready for it? They said 6!
Only 6 minutes.
A new study released last month shared that 33% of buyers chose not to engage with a salesperson.
With all these current changes, having a strong social media presence to increase sales is critical today.
From my sales effectiveness assessments with clients, B2B salespeople with social selling skills are very low, but many teams want to improve.
How do top-performing B2B companies use social media and social selling in today’s new digital decision making envirinment?
That’s what this post is about. Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. If you are a new business and haven’t been using social media, you may not know how to navigate this sometimes-complicated terrain. The good news is that your social media marketing will be on autopilot once you get the hang of it. Here are some things to keep in mind to ensure your social media marketing is effective. Social selling skills leverage social platforms to win conversations that lead to revenue.
Reduce Your Sales Pitch
Since your ultimate goal is you are trying to sell more, you should not sell on social media. It may seem strange not to include a sales pitch in every post. However, selling every time is the last thing you should do. You need to make sure your content is balanced. Your content should educate, entertain, and sell to your audience. Make sure you do more educating and entertaining than selling.
This is the best way to ensure that your content is well-balanced. When you give people a lot of free, valuable information, they are more likely to purchase from you when it is time to sell them something.
People use social media to connect with friends and family and relax. Bear this in mind when you try to use social selling skills.
Focus on Brand Awareness
Another thing you should focus on is brand awareness. People must get to recognize your brand through frequent postings.
They will also share your most popular posts with your friends and family, helping increase your brand awareness. Make sure your social media content is branded with your logo and website URL so that when your posts are shared, people can visit your website to learn more about your products and services.
You can run ads to sell your products on social media, but you can also run ads solely for brand awareness. While you may not make a sale immediately from brand awareness campaigns, when you run these ads, you put your business in front of a receptive audience interested in what you offer.
In the future, if they ever need a service, your business may be the first to come to mind.
Choose Platforms Wisely
When it comes to social media, your business must be everywhere. However, you need to ensure that the people you want to buy your products and services from are on these platforms.
When you’re a new business or even a more seasoned business just getting into social media, you will need to look at what your competitors are doing.
Chances are, if your competitors are active on social media, they already know what it takes to drive engagement. Look at their platforms and the type of posts they use to generate interest.
You can incorporate this into your style in a unique way that matches your brand.
One powerful way we have found to help companies wanting to improve their social presence is by interviewing their customers.
Ask your customers:
What social platforms do you use?
Where do you go when searching for something to solve a problem?
What social platforms do you not use?
Be Consistent
What’s Omnichannel marketing, and what do you need to know?
Omnichannel marketing is about having your message in many places, both inbound and outbound.
The key to Omnichannel marketing success is that each message says the same and feels the same to the decision maker.
One thing you must do on social media is stay consistent. Even if you only post once a week, you must ensure it gets done. If you want to grow faster, it is always best to post more often, especially on platforms like Instagram.
Your posts on Instagram do not last as long as they would on platforms such as Pinterest or YouTube. You always need to keep your content fresh to keep your fans satisfied.
Remember that short-form video content is viral right now. Instagram promotes reels more than any other post type, so if you want to grow your social media following, it is always best to consistently create reels.
When I post a short video on LinkedIn, for example, I receive 5-10 times as many views, comments, likes, and shares as an article. YouTube now has Shorts, and Pinterest has Idea Pins. This means you can make one short-form video and cross-promote it on all these platforms.
Conquer Social Selling Skills
Over 70% of the top-performing B2B salespeople leverage social selling in their sales process.
Conquering social selling is a must if you want to be one of the top-performing salespeople today. You need to engage with your audience, since most of them are on social media.
Try several social media strategies to see which works best for you. Once you find a strategy that works, the best thing you can do is rinse and repeat. This will give you the most success.
If you sell B2B products, you will find LinkedIn a great way to identify and connect with new prospects.
We developed a short training and coaching course to help salespeople adapt, titled “Social Selling in a Digital World.”
To be one of the top-producing salespeople on your team, you will need to develop your skills in social selling.
Here we train salespeople in social selling skills like:
Updating your LinkedIn profile
How to request connections on LinkedIn
How to leverage marketing assets to keep the sale moving to a close
How to use social selling to become more of a trusted advisor with current customers
How and when to use digital assets to demonstrate competence and build trust with social selling
What not to do in social selling
How to follow up on a social lead
To grow revenue and profits in today’s selling environment, you need a social media strategy and to train your salespeople in social selling skills.
If your B2B sales team needs help adapting to the digital world, give us a call.
Image by freepik