Social networks have weaved their way into becoming a ubiquitous part of the sales process, and a key driver of success. Evidence for the efficacy of social selling has been seen for years – back in 2012, for example, IBM reported that sales of a new cloud computing product increased 400% year over year through intelligent social listening and selling. According to digital marketing agency ODM group, their success is due in part to the fact that 74% of consumers now rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions – having eyes, ears, and a voice in those networks makes a tremendous difference in terms of the number of prospects a business can reach.
Though sales professionals understand the potential of social selling, only a few of them know “How to do it”. Below is a hypothetical story that details one of the ways how sales professionals do social selling.
Eric is a B2B sales professional that knows how to use social media to find and win over leads that his competition can’t. Throughout his day he scours Twitter and LinkedIn Groups to find new leads. On Twitter, for example, Eric searches for leads by browsing through tweets that contain keywords indicating a need for his company’s products. He also engages in insightful conversation through public conversations and posts so that people looking to solve those problems see that he’s a good source of insight.
Once Eric spots a potential lead, he investigates their LinkedIn profile, company page, and other employees to identify key stakeholders that might need see a need for his product. Browsing through the company’s Twitter and Facebook pages he learns what the business’s customers need, discuss, and complain about. Armed with that information, Eric connects his product’s benefits to the business and key stakeholders’ challenges and creates a “YOU” focused sales presentation aimed at the company’s gatekeeper. Then he reaches out. With this set of tactics Eric outperforms 78% of his colleagues who aren’t using social media to engage with leads and sell.
Looking to experiences some of the same successes our friend Eric does through social selling? Here are a five ways you can boost your sales with Twitter:
Reach new leads
Filter tweets based on interest-signal keywords like ‘recommend’, or ‘advice’, or ‘looking for’, and your product category to find potential buyers. Filter tweets that ask for your industry or product related questions and share your insights in reply to build your follower base. Vtiger lets you integrate your twitter account directly into the CRM where you can manage and record every interaction with every contact so that you can build a detailed database of your engagements.
Win engagement
A sales study shows that 35-50% of sales go to he or she who makes first contact. To make first contact, keep a close eye on your filtered tweets so that you can be first to grab a lead’s attention when they indicate interest. Alternately, in a more inbound approach, conduct fun contests and offer exclusives to those that engage on Twitter. Appreciation, and shares could follow.
Have more insightful sales calls
Once you have identified a lead from Twitter, and imported them to your CRM (you can with Vtiger!), you will see a complete history of Tweets. Analyse them to find out your leads’ interests, challenges, and goals. Also, be sure to review their profile description as it often outlines their core values. Use these insights when you reach out to explain your product or service in the context of their needs and values.
Learn from and address the competition
To always have the upper hand on the competition, you need to know what they’re doing. Twitter can serve as an excellent monitoring tool for that purpose. Simply create a private list (visible only to you) on Twitter and add your competitors’ Twitter handles. New products, services, and deals, as well as how their customers respond, should influence how you engage with customers.
Shape the conversation
Constantly share information that your followers need. Avoid trying to be “hip” and overusing hashtags in tweets – they waste space and make the message hard to read. You’ll be rewarded for it – tweets with one or two hashtags have 21% more engagement than those with three or more hashtags. Retweet, @mention, and favorite tweets to define what you stand for and leave an impression on your customers.
Take a quick tour to learn how you can use Twitter in Vtiger CRM. Have any questions while you’re doing that? Leave us a comment below, or ask us in an email to [email protected]
