Simina Ignat
We know Social Media is a great tool for increasing word of mouth about your brand, establishing transparency and highlighting all the company updates you’d like to share with your follower base. But have you ever considered a sales strategy through social media? Lately, it has become the number one priority of online marketers, and with notable results, might we add. Social selling has improved its outcomes in the past years and we have the main insights plus a few useful tips for your own strategy right below.
Let’s see the main statistics from the previous year that matter for B2B sales through Social Media, and take notice of the future trends that will affect this part of your game plan.
1. The problem with ROI:
Numbers, numbers, numbers!
Usually, marketers find it hard to calculate the ROI of their allocated and spent marketing budget. In fact, only 35% of them have managed to do so in all cases, while 42% of them say they can perform this action only some of the time, rarely or not at all. (Source)
However, the budgets are doubling from one year to the other, which means results are showing; we just need better tools that can calculate the investment we make in social media campaigns, be it a social selling campaign or a brand exposure one. It is expected for marketers to spend $ 8.3 billions on Social Media Advertising in 2015, and that’s just for brand awareness, web traffic and marketing insights campaigns. (Source)
2. Actual selling stats:
78% of salespeople using social media outsell their peers, and they do it fast as well, as they spend less than 10% of their selling time using Social Media. (Source)
This tells us social networks are definitely worth a top position in your selling. Bearing in mind that what you need is a constant number of qualified leads, you need to review your target audience and go where you can find them. Among B2B companies, LinkedIn is the most effective in generating leads, with 65% having acquired a customer through the network, followed by the company blog (60%), Facebook (43%) and Twitter (40%). (Source)
3. Think about your clients:
85% of B2B buyers believe companies should present information via social networks. (Source). And there you have it. In order to increase the performance level of your selling plan and get in with the 20% of CMOs who leverage social networks to engage with customers, you need to think of lead nurturing campaigns as well, because not every lead is sales-ready at first. Take everything into consideration and decide according to your business objectives. Small hint: B2B marketers who use Twitter generate 2 times as many leads as those that do not. (Source) Are you on Twitter yet?
- One of the best examples of social selling done right is represented by IBM, who saw an increase of 400% in sales in a Social Selling Pilot Program. Trying to go from Social to Sales, IBM turned their sales team social media savvy in order to reach their audience made of IT professionals. Are you curious to see how they managed? Then this is the study case (by B2B Marketing) you need to go through if you want to apply the same tactics. One of the facts we found most surprising was that 3 months after launch, 19% of the traffic to their Sales Rep Page came entirely from social media activity. It can be done.
By now, you’re probably wondering how exactly you can manage to increase sales through social media and reach the objectives you’ve set for your business growth. We’re here to help with some actionable tips.
- Set clear objectives
If you’re finding it hard to connect your business goals to your social media strategy in order to establish a good selling plan, our team has come up with a step-by-step template to help out your efforts.
- Engage with customers
Given the stats above about how only 20% of CMOs engage with their leads on social media, you’ll probably need to re-think your approach if you haven’t delivered any targeted content out there yet. There is still time to turn your prospects into actual customers.
- Analyze the current status that your clients have with your brand
Begin from there. See what needs to be done and start sketching the plan that works best for increasing your results. Don’t fear lack of training. 93% of sales executives have not received any formal training on social selling, therefore all you need to do is start with what you have now and figure out a way to grow.
- Establish a one-to-one communication plan
82% of prospects can be reached via social media (source), so you can engage in a conversation that can get you a closed deal in an easy manner. Remember to research and see where your target audience is searching for content and be there for them to find you.
Enjoyed our article? What else do you need for your social media sales game plan? Let us know in the comments below!
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