Create Your Social Selling Strategy in Just 3 Steps

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Offline doha

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Create Your Social Selling Strategy in Just 3 Steps
« on: September 06, 2014, 10:46:06 AM »
Create Your Social Selling Strategy in Just 3 Steps

if you’re in sales or marketing, you can’t go a day without hearing the term “social selling.” In a nutshell, social selling is knowing who your targets are before you engage with them. And by “knowing,” it means the 2014 version of knowing, not the old title+company+industry that used to pass for knowing your targets. The 2014 version is knowing their needs, knowing if you have any mutual connections, and knowing any recent news or events that are relevant—all before you even reach out to them.

If you’re looking for an edge over your competitors or want to energize your lead-to-revenue process, social selling could provide the bump that you need, since the stats are in its favor. For one, social selling can increase your engagement rate by up to 84 percent. For another, only 10 percent of executives respond to unsolicited emails. It’s easy to get started, even if you want to give it a try on just a single campaign. Of course, you do need the ability to find accurate, relevant, timely data first, but we’ll assume that you’re up to the task.

Let’s get started!

1)   Build your list

Start by building your list as you always have, based on company size, location, industry, etc. Then, identify your key targets based on level and job function. Try to keep the list as Developing a social businesstargeted as possible. Starting with “Fortune 1000 companies” or “services industry” is going to cast too wide of a net, and social selling is a pinpoint tactic, not a broad, generic shotgun approach. Think about it this way:  if you’re throwing a weekend picnic, do you invite everyone you’ve ever met in your life or just the circle of friends that can fit in your back yard? Social selling uses deep, specific, and relevant information to tip the balance in your direction. Trying to find, parse, and act upon that type of information for thousands of leads isn’t going to work.

2)   Listen and engage

First, you want to find out what’s happening with your targets and even with the individual leads. News is a good example, like a target company entering in a partnership with another listen to customerscompany, or an earnings release that missed estimates. Both good and bad news are equally valuable to you. You might also have specific types of news or events that are specifically relevant to your offerings. Say that you’re selling data security services. You might want to key in on news events related to data breaches, of which there have been many recently. The news triggers that are interesting to you might be unique to you, so look for what you can leverage.

Next, dig into the “social” side, since this is social selling after all. Look at the company’s Twitter and Facebook feeds for any tidbits of information. Companies tend to push out smaller news or niche items via those channels, rather than full press releases. This step can get tedious, unless you have the right information readily available and easily accessible. That’s why it’s important to both narrow your list and have the right tools to quickly and easily gather this information.

3)   Connect and win!

Again with the social, check your own social networks to see if you have any connections to the company and the individual leads. If you’re a good sales rep, you’ve been checking LinkedIn and Facebook for years, but there are new tools out there today that help you see the social and professional connections of everyone in your company, giving you another connect online through social networks to close more dealslayer of hundreds or thousands of potential connections. Finally, you need to hone in on those targets and leads with the best set of connections, criteria, and news to get:

- A warm introduction through a mutual connection…
- At a company that fits your target criteria…
- With a lead to whom you can offer a relevant, timely discussion about a key business issue that they’re dealing with.

That’s social selling. Now go do it!

Source: by Jason Rushin | Sep 4, 2014 | Closing, CRM Intelligence, customer intelligence, Funnel, lead qualification, Leads, Sales 2.0, Sales Data, Sales Intelligence, Sales Strategy, Sales-Marketing Alignment, Social CRM, Social Media for Sales, Social Selling
« Last Edit: September 06, 2014, 10:47:55 AM by doha »