Are you struggling with generating new leads?
Don’t worry, you are not alone!
Lead generation is one of the biggest challenges that businesses face. Wondering, why? Well, there are many reasons, but constantly increasing competition is a major reason behind this struggle. Certainly, it’s quite difficult to survive in this highly competitive business world. However, there are many ways to reach your targeted audience, fill your sales pipeline and boost the revenue of your business.
Many business owners depend on cold calling to reach out to their potential customers. Gone are the days when you can successfully reach a new prospect just by making a few cold calls. Undeniably, cold calling isn’t dead and can help you in lead generation, but you can’t depend on it completely.
As per today’s scenario, if you rely on cold calling only, then you may fail. According to a recent survey report, more than 90 percent of consumers never respond or purchase anything from cold calls. If you want to acquire relevant leads for your business, then you should incorporate the latest marketing techniques in your lead generation strategy.
Social media marketing is one of the best marketing techniques that can help you ace the competition in the digital marketplace. Whether you aim to increase your brand awareness, improve your website traffic, or boost sales, social media marketing can help you do all.
Social selling is a buzzword these days. It’s a new and effective approach that can help you establish rapport and expand your customer base. With more than 3.6 billion people worldwide, social selling is a perfect way to reach your prospective customers and turn them into your paying customers.
What exactly social selling is?
In simple terms, it is an incredibly powerful way to connect with your prospects and engage with them. If performed correctly, social selling can help you build brand awareness, increase engagement rate and establish meaningful relationships with your potential customers.
Clearly, it is a great technique that enables you to engage with your potential leads and helps you reach your sales targets. The best part about social selling is that it doesn’t involve direct or hard selling. It is a modern and effective technique that can help you bring your business on top of your prospects’ minds. This implies that you will be the first brand they prefer while making a purchase decision.
Why should you focus on social selling?
Do you know that a user spent approximately 145 minutes daily on social media marketing platforms? Isn’t it a great opportunity to connect with your prospective customers and elevate your sales graph?
Still not convinced? Here are some reasons why you should give social selling at least a try:
Saves Your Time
Social selling is not a time-consuming technique. A recent survey report says that 39 percent of B2B professionals said that social selling minimizes the time they used to spend researching contacts for cold calling. People on social media keep on engaging with different communities and ask for recommendations from influencers. Focussing on social selling lets you listen and respond to such queries. In fact, you can share valuable information with your prospects. By doing this, you can establish a strong relationship with your potential customers, which ultimately bring profit to your door.
Increase number of leads
Undeniably, the ultimate goal of every business is to generate leads and increase sales. Social selling can help you attract more leads and help you boost the revenue of your business. Social selling allows you to boost engagement with your prospects and helps you convert them into loyal customers.
Your prospects love social buying
According to a recent survey report, 25 percent of Americans engaged in social buying within the last six months. In fact, other countries also saw a rise in social buying within the last few months. It’s clear that people love buying from social media. Thus, it’s imperative to focus on social selling. If you have not incorporated social selling in your lead generation strategy yet, then it’s high time to give this incredible marketing technique a try.
Are you ready to sell your products through social media but don’t know how?
Let’s dive into some effective tactics that can help you sell your products on social media.
How to sell your products on social media
1. Set a goal
Identifying your goals is one of the most important and basic steps to build an effective social selling strategy. Whether you aim for the number of tickets booked or conversations started, you must have a clear idea of your goal. This helps you create an amazing and result-driven social selling strategy for your business.
2. Choose the right social media network
There are so many social media networking sites out there. Some of the popular social media networking sites are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. A majority of businesses use these social media networking sites to promote their offerings. The best part about social selling is that you don’t need to be active on every social media networking site.
Keep in mind that the mantra of social selling is to be active on the same social media platform as your prospective customers. If you are a B2B company, then LinkedIn is good for you, and if you are running a boutique, then Instagram can bring better results for your business.
So, before stepping into social selling, it’s crucial to choose the most relevant social media network for your business.
3. Revamp your profile on all social media platforms
If you want to reap desired results from social selling, then you should focus on improving your social media profiles. Having impressive social media profiles can help you get more exposure and improve your brand’s online reputation. In this tech-savvy world, brand reputation matters a lot. Do you know that 90 percent of consumers check a brand’s reputation before interacting with it? Your profiles on social media platforms are possibly the first impression of your brand. So, it should be awesome. Always remember that the first impression of your brand can make or break a deal. So, you should revamp your brand’s profile on all social media platforms.
4. Connect, Engage & Interact with your targeted audience
Social selling is a personal tactic where your communication skills are in the driver’s seat. The more you connect, engage and interact, the better results you will get. So, determine your targeted audience, connect with them and engage (via liking, commenting, mentioning, retweeting, and more). You can follow and interact with the influencers of your industry to foster a meaningful relationship with your potential leads. Apart from this, keep an on the comment section of the posts and interact with the useful comments. In this way, you can increase your brand awareness, improve your engagement rate and boost sales.
Conclusion
Doubtlessly, social selling is a cost-effective approach to connect with your potential customers, get more leads, and boost your revenue. In order to get real results from social selling, you need to focus on building meaningful relationships and delivering value to your audience. Always remember that social selling requires consistent efforts and patience. It’s not a single activity that can be done in one day. Social selling requires constant effort and attention.
Sachin Agrawal is an Enterprise Architect and heads up Business & Technology at Tarika Technologies. He carries expertise and a flair for writing on Management Consulting, Software & Analytics, and Digital Media. Apart from distilling his technical ideas into creating innovative solutions, he is a practitioner of Haidong Gumdo and at his leisure, taps the Cajon and strums his Guitar!