The overall B2B sales landscape, sales technologies in-demand by sales today and core sales processes are all undergoing a complete shift, in part due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. But in all, over the years, evolving trends in this market have made it imperative for today’s salespeople to learn newer ways to stand out among their prospects in order to create better sales ROI and boost their own results and metrics.
According to an earlier study, 49% of B2B enterprise sales teams have developed a formal social selling program. Social media as a channel has always been the prerogative of marketing teams and marketers, but over the years, there have been more disruptions (and increased competition) in the industry, making sales managers urge their sales teams to use social media to engage more with prospects.
So the key question – will social selling be a new must-do for sales people as time progresses and will sales teams need to find new ways to boost their social media engagements to win more prospect meetings? Social media and social selling can be an important part of the sales mix today and allow sales people to interact directly with their prospects in a less formalized set-up while also using the channel to answer doubts and queries about the product or service they are pitching.
Here are a few top reasons for sales people to embrace more social selling as part of their day to day strategies:
Sales people with a Strong Social Media Backing can Influence Key Decision Makers
Before buying onto a product or service, 75% of B2B buyers are known to conduct research about the product or service on social channels, when they, do, they are likely to also look up the brand’s social media presence. Add to that, when a sales team member has already been engaging with the prospect, via email for instance, the buyer will also be interested in the sales person’s online behavior and will look them up if the conversation has been moving through the funnel.
Today’s B2B buyers leverage social media to understand more about the brand they may want to buy into, a strong social media presence from the key sales person whose been managing the prospecting initiatives of a particular account can in fact influence buying decisions. For the buyer to have a positive impression, it is imperative for sales managers to plan effective social selling posts and messages closely with their sales team, based on the industry they plan to target and what result they are hoping to achieve (a meeting, etc).
B2B Salespeople Who Have an Active Social Media Presence Are Better Performers
According to HubSpot, 78% of the salespeople who use social media for prospecting perform better than their counterparts, in fact, 98% of sales reps who have high numbers of followers on channels like LinkedIn are known to surpass their quotas. If you’re looking for proven examples, IBM’s social selling strategy led to increased sales of over 400%,
Social media is an easier less informal way for B2B buyers to not only research about the brand they interact with, it is also a medium for them to build better relationships with the brand. Sales people who share value-add content based on their product or posts that are relevant to their target buyers (statistics, interesting videos, updated on industry reports, etc) will be more likely to get the attention of the buyer and will find it easier to engage with them without the usual pressures that a normal sales cadence puts on them.
Today’s B2B buyers don’t want to Interact with Sales
Known statistics and research have indicated that over 70% of today’s B2B buyers are unwilling to interact with salepeople during their research stage of the buying process (seeing that there is already an abundance of information available for buyers to go through online today), moreover, 57% of today’s B2B buyers usually complete their buying journey with their own research without the need to talk to a sales person. But how can does this mean that sales people who are focused on strong social selling strategies can create more impact when statistics indicate otherwise?
The answer- sales people, in fact, when all customer facing sales reps of a brand have an omnichannel messaging (based on product information, industry information, benefits of a particular product with proven statistics, etc) in place for the social channels that their target audience is known to be most active on, it can create a wholesome buying experience for a prospect’s research stage as well, the uniformity and fact that every sales rep is on the same page gives brands the impression that the sales team knows what they’re talking about. In a world where information is freely available but the right information is crucial to decision-making, a strong sales team’s social selling strategy can hugely impact brand performance and sales ROI. Besides this, it is important to remember that a strong social media presence for sales can also in fact attract more inbound sales conversations, leading to more wins!
It Doesn’t take A Lot
Creating engaging sales conversations using a multi-channel approach (and a strong social selling strategy) can enhance the way prospects interact with or feel about a brand. With the growing numbers of social selling tools and social media automation available today, it is easier for sales team members to derive strong social selling strategies that are easy to customize based on the need of the hour. In order to break through the noise, it is crucial for sales people to use more than the usual email and cold calling initiatives to garner prospect attention today and a strong social selling approach can give them that.
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