Most people tend to think that social selling is the same as social media marketing or social media advertising, but that isn’t the case. Social selling allows salespeople to use their connections on different platforms to ditch cold calling and laser-focus on prospective clients. It’s an efficient tool for businesses looking to grow their leads and increase ROI organically.
What exactly is social selling?
Social selling is the art of enhancing sales prospects. Through the use of social media, salespeople find, connect with, interact with and understand their potential customer’s needs and frustrations. This helps develop great relationships and generate organic sales. By providing genuine interactions online, a potential client is more likely to think of you or your brand when they’re in need of your product or services.
Using social media to sell isn’t about continuously sending spam messages to strangers on Facebook and LinkedIn. Rather than immediately gaining access to prospects, the goal is to slowly develop a relationship. At the right time, a salesperson can offer services as a solution to a problem the prospect might be experiencing. Aim to make your client’s life easier by offering a fix other than becoming a bother.
Generating more revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic
COVID-19 has negatively impacted businesses of all sizes around the world, forcing companies and their employees into survival mode by reducing advertising and marketing costs.
With social selling, more revenue can be generated without expensive ad budgets. A company doesn’t have to invest thousands of dollars in new campaigns or flashy commercials to increase revenue. By training current sales staff, or outsourcing social selling to an agency, they can still see an increase in productivity and ROI, making it one of the more effective ways to deal with the impact of COVID-19.
Why should social selling be part of your client strategy?
At Zopto, we’re dedicated to seeing businesses remain competitive, and that includes marketing agencies. We understand that efficiency and effectiveness are key when engaging with outreach tools, and that social selling is just part of the big picture. Here are just some of the ways an agency can implement social selling through LinkedIn, using Zopto to enhance your client-focused marketing strategy.
1. Enhances brand visibility
Part of social selling is maintaining active social media profiles. Posting relevant content that answers potential questions your target customer might have can increase engagement and reach on organic posts. And the more users that read or comment on your social media posts, the bigger your client’s visibility.
Employees should be encouraged to optimize their profiles as well and tag the company page whenever relevant, opening up their own networks to help with the legwork of growing awareness of your client’s brand.
2. Improves website traffic
As you create content for your clients’ social media channels, clicks on your posts can lead to more traffic for their website. If the website is set up to convert potential customers on its own, great! But either way, your client’s website should contain all the information an interested buyer needs to learn about their product or service, so that the valuable time spent speaking to the customer can be focused on selling rather than answering common questions.
3. Allows salespeople to grow their personal brand
It’s no surprise that sales professionals who build their personal brand have better opportunities for social selling than others and are more likely to meet their sales quotas. Taking the time to engage with relevant content, post regular updates and have a strong voice on social media can be a huge factor in whether social selling will work for a particular company or brand. Agencies can guide their clients in the right direction by encouraging or even coaching salespeople to be active personally on social media and help them grow their personal brands.
4. Drives leads and improves lead quality
Staying in touch with social contacts isn’t just about reading their posts. Interact with them on social channels – Pay attention to what they’re posting, Like or comment your support and generally build meaningful relationships as part of the social selling process.
Creating an immediate rapport with people your client has connected with will only enhance the quality of leads you’re able to provide to your client through social selling. In fact, in a survey by SCO Insights, one in three professionals said that social selling tools increased the number and quality of leads they were able to work with. This strategy has also been proven to increase lead conversions and help build deeper relationships with prospects.
5. It’s easy!
Your clients might already be engaged in social selling without even knowing it. Potential buyers oftentimes look online to find vendors, research their social media profiles and develop an opinion, all before making any contact with your client. According to CEB, most customers are, on average, 57 percent through the purchasing process before ever even engaging with a salesperson.
Buyers are open to having social media conversions and can be generally responsive to relevant connections and opportunities for their company. Positioning your client as a known thought leader in their industry can help establish their reputation and make the social selling process even easier on their behalf.
Should I post 2 reels a day?
While LinkedIn doesn’t limit the number of reels you can post daily, it’s essential to focus on quality over quantity. Make sure your content is valuable and engaging.
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