In today’s digital world, B2B buyers are more engaged and digitally informed. The rise of the connected buyer means your sales organization needs to account for a buyer who is more educated and researched than ever before.
They’ve done their homework on your solution – and your competitors’ solutions as well. When they finally contact a salesperson, they’re ready to talk price. In order to move beyond regular vendor status, you’ll need to take action.
Use the resources available to engage buyers earlier in their buying process while establishing your role as a valuable resource and a trusted advisor. Social media tools are effective resources to help you get to buyers earlier. Consider these stats:
- 87% of B2B Buyers say online content has a major to moderate effect on their purchasing decisions (Source: CMO Council)
- 84% of CEOs/VPs use social media to make purchasing decisions (Source: IDC)
Here are three ways social media can help you improve your sales conversation
1. Provides an Effective Discovery Tool
By following your prospective buyers on Twitter or LinkedIn, you’ll be more informed on the current projects and potential business issues your customer may be facing. While your clients may not broadcast their business issues to the world, their activities can clue you in to potential opportunities and how your solution might best meet these needs. Things like earning reports, new product launches, and partnerships can all be clues that someone may be considering a new solution.
An often-accepted formula for an effective sales conversation consists of 80% listening and 20% talking. Your buyers expect you to come prepared to make your 20% count. Don’t waste their time asking questions that you could have found the answers to on the company website or social media page. If your prospects are talking on social media, you should be listening – because if you’re not, chances are someone else already is.
2. Maintain Relationships with Current Buyers
Social Media is not only an effective discovery tool for engaging new prospects. It also helps you to maintain your relationships with current customers beyond the standard 30/60/90 day check-ins. Rather than calling their office or scheduling a meeting, social allows you to engage with your customers from wherever you are. Social media lends itself to mobility more than any other form of communication. Demonstrate your value as a salesperson by sharing content that’s relevant to your customers while engaging with content they post at the same time.
Use the following tips to guide your social selling and maintain your current relationships:
- Set aside time, even if it’s only 10-15 minutes, a few times a week to engage on social media.
- Follow up on your current customers, their recent tweets/posts and the conversations they're having.
- Take time to respond to tweets, retweets or mentions.
- Leverage the information you’ve gained towards a current goal.
Remember you’re providing much more than just a product/service solution, you’re providing value to your network.
3. Keep Up with the Competition
While social media can help to connect you with new prospects and identify potential opportunities, it can also help you to stay up-to-date on your competition. The best weapon you have in your arsenal is knowledge – customer/industry knowledge, knowledge of your company’s products and knowledge of your competition's activities.
Tuning into your competition’s social media can alert you to new capabilities or features, which may require you to change the way you approach a sales conversation. The connected seller is more aware of his/her own capabilities in relation to the competition, more relevant to the customer’s interests and concerns and ultimately more equipped to ask better trap-setting questions.
By being informed on the latest competitor information, you will be able to better differentiate your solutions and articulate the overall value that you can provide to your customers.
Remember, there’s as much differentiation in how you sell as there is in what you sell. If your buyers are using social to research vendors and possible solutions, your ability to communicate with them in these channels helps your build an advantage over the competition.
Are you ready to become a social seller?
Social selling isn’t a new way of selling, rather it is an extension of the ways you are currently engaging your prospects and customers. It simply provides you new modalities to reach them. Using social media to maintain contact with customers, between regular intervals, will only enhance the relationships you have and potentially connect you to new opportunities.