Sales strategies succeed when they integrate social media. Are you choosing the right tools and strategies?
While email open rates are declining fast, certain social media platforms offer much better odds. For example, LinkedIn InMails boast a 30% open rate. (Source: MarketingProfs, LinkedIn Sales Ops manager)
Here’s how one of my reps closed a deal with social media in less than a day.
My team uses TweetDeck to track real-time Twitter conversations about web and video conferencing. Recently, one rep saw a company ask for web conferencing recommendations. He picked up the phone, and reached the CEO in 5 minutes. They discussed the CEO’s frustrations with the company’s current web conferencing platform, and then talked about iMeet.
Within a few hours, the rep had a signed trial agreement in his hand. That company is now a client.
The changing face of business communication
Social media channels increasingly define how businesses use information, both internally and externally. Consumers currently read blogs and use social media three times more than they do email. Meanwhile, 93% of b2b marketers use social media.
Take Atos, for example. Their employees receive 200 emails a day. Only 10% are useful, and 18% are spam. That’s why the French IT giant just announced a zero-email policy for all company communications. They’ll use instant messaging and social media instead. (Source: WSJ)
As Christopher Cabrera said, some are killing email in the name of sale performance.
Making social intelligence work for you
It isn’t enough to know social media is on the rise, however. You need to use it to raise sales. You do that in three ways:
- Define your social media strategy. Identify a comprehensive social media strategy. It goes back to sales and marketing alignment. Do your social media strategies complement your other sales efforts?
- Identify appropriate social media tools, especially face-to-face technology. There are few sales tools more powerful than a face-to-face meeting. Today, you can have a face-to-face from anywhere.
- Measure, reevaluate, and redefine. While it can take a while for a new strategy to show results, don’t hold on longer than necessary to find out. Be ready to dump golden ideas that don’t pan out.
Driving change
Do your sales tools make the most of information available on social media? Believe it or not, there are still marketers out there developing campaigns for MySpace (and a sales force behind them following MySpace leads).
External change moves at a breakneck pace. It’s hard to keep up. But driving change is the only way to avoid being driven out of business.
Check out these 5 strategies for sales success in 2012 and my sales tips for LinkedIn and Facebook.
How will your team use social media to close business next year?
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[...] this industry research and news from Todd McCormick: Social media channels increasingly define how businesses use information, both internally and [...]
Great stats on social media and the personal connection in sales. Nothing replaces a personal conversation to seal the deal.
Social media is a great place to find out who people are, who they know, and how we’re connected. When you want to ask for a referral from one of your connections, pick up the phone and reconnect. Nothing boosts your sales faster than referrals.
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