Why does social selling matter in B2B
You probably noticed that the days of door-to-door sales associates are long gone. Still, not only the pandemic has shown that times have changed. Social selling was already established as the best strategy as the home office wasn't standard yet. The pandemic just increased the trend of buying and selling online.
Today, online selling is a necessity if you want your business to remain competitive. Surveys show that 78% of social sellers are more successful than their peers who don’t use social selling. Social media and big data analytics are now simply a part of daily life. Do you want to know how to make the most of it and ride the social selling wave? Here are three strategies to do so successfully:
1. Create meaningful online relationships
Social media has become a big part of most people's daily lives, and this development makes social selling an absolute must. It may feel less personal than speaking face-to-face, but there are plenty of ways to meet and interact with customers where they are—online.
How do you attract prospects to your website and social media accounts? One great way is to establish yourself as a thought leader, an expert in your field. You can gain this reputation by sharing content that is useful to your target audience. When you post, try asking a thought-provoking question to engage your readers and get a conversation started in the comments.
Another great use of social media is co-creating products with customers. Get them involved by holding contests for new product ideas or polling them on new products they’d like to see. You can also build engagement by publicly celebrating company milestones and offering deals or benefits for business partners or customers. Sharing insights and regular communication build a sense of community that will keep prospects returning to your website and social media.
2. Take a digitally savvy approach to sales
Along with the digital era has come a focus on sales as a science rather than a mysterious art. Businesses have much greater access to data and can use it to their advantage when selling.
You can use analysis of past campaigns to optimize your content and timing of messaging to attract customers. Information about users’ locations, social media interests and product searches, in addition to point-of-sale information, are among the reams of data collected about customer accounts.
Leveraging AI tools that sort this data creates an account-based approach to marketing that makes it easier to tell which users are most likely to be interested, rather than casting a net that’s too wide. It even enables the tailoring of marketing to individual users. Since large organizations often have the capacity for advanced data analysis, it's vital for small- and medium-sized businesses to strategically use online tools.
3. Sell at the speed of the modern world
Another change that has resulted from the digitization of sales is a difference in the overall cadence of transactions. Businesses have an advantage if they can keep up with fast-paced changes in the marketplace. Many companies now make it a goal to follow up on leads just minutes after they have been generated. Social media represents peak speed in selling.
Other tools, such as trend forecasting and analysis of browsing patterns, make it fast and simple to analyze the performance of products and services. Sales leaders — not to mention customers — expect rapid and accurate responses to shifts in market conditions. Social selling helps you react to new information and reach customers instantly, right where they are.
Why social selling matters in 2022
Social selling is a crucial part of any company’s strategy because relationships now happen online, marketing is mainly digital and sales occur faster than ever. Just when in-person gatherings were becoming more feasible again, new Covid variants arose to hamper the trend. At any rate, customers have grown accustomed to the convenience of online buying and now prefer it, especially in the preliminary decision-making phases of finding what they need.
No other medium offers the massive volume of social selling customer traffic. That volume and the abundant options for fine-tuning your strategy make social selling a must-have for business in 2022.
How has social selling affected your business strategy and influenced your company’s future? Give us your insights below. We look forward to hearing from you!
Photos by lamorinphotographia on Pixabay; Oliver Sjöström on Unsplash; and Vladimir Kudinov on Unsplash