Personal connections are essential to closing deals, as B2B sales professionals have long known and here you will know B2B social selling tools and techniques.
In the past, this meant having in-person conversations and making phone calls, but in the current digital era, there is a new type of selling called B2B social selling.
Utilizing social networks, which are already well-established online sources, offers the chance to forge close-knit relationships with customers and close more deals.
Let’s look at how B2B works first.
See also 14 best digital marketing guidelines to grow your business.
B2B social selling
Social selling is the process of connecting with potential customers through social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to forge relationships and ultimately increase sales.
By using the same tools customers use to research products, sales representatives can level the playing field.
Salespeople previously took advantage of the information asymmetry to their advantage.
They used the fact that they were able to provide buyers with more information about products, market trends, and pricing to close sales. However, social media has altered the field of play.
Before speaking to a sales representative, customers can quickly learn all they need to know about a product. What should a sales representative do in this situation? Social selling is the remedy.
Techniques for B2B Social Selling
Techniques for B2B social selling are given bellow;
1. Thought Leadership
A thought leader is a recognized expert in their field who influences others through their original concepts. Because they respect their knowledge and expertise, thought leaders frequently ask for help and direction.
Thought leadership requires commitment, patience, and time. To impart your insights to others, you must keep up with the most recent trends and advancements in your industry.
To be at the cutting edge of innovation, it also is to stay current with the newest tools and technology.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it entails speaking up without hesitation when you have an idea that challenges the status quo.
Thought leadership can take many different forms, but it always aims to assist potential clients in comprehending and resolving their issues.
Starting to produce valuable content for the audience is the first step. Videos, articles, white papers, and blog posts all qualify as content.
Once a solid body of work is finished, it is promoted via social media or other channels, reaching a wide audience and enticing potential clients to interact with the thought leader’s brand.
You can establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry by interacting with as many people as possible.
2. Vibrant Social Media Platforms
We are aware that using social media for communication with friends and family is no longer the only use for it. To reach new customers, develop relationships, and expand their brands, it is now a crucial tool for businesses.
Here are some tips for utilizing social media to its full potential for your company.
Establish a social media strategy
A strategy is necessary before you start producing content for social media. Using social media platforms, a series of actions are taken to accomplish a particular goal.
Knowing your objectives, your target audience and a strategy for content creation and distribution are necessary.
As a result, it’s crucial to stop and consider your goals before you start posting at random. What do you hope to accomplish with your online presence?
For instance, if you want to raise brand awareness, you should concentrate on producing interesting and shareable content.
On the other hand, if you want to increase sales, you must write blog posts with calls to action and links to your store’s or product pages.
Read also how to increase organic social media reach?
Choose the right platforms for your business
The unique features and advantages of every social media platform can be used to accomplish a variety of goals. Therefore, you must pick the appropriate platform for your business.
Knowing the various social media platforms and their functions is the first step.
For instance, LinkedIn is primarily used for business networking, whereas Instagram is more appropriate for companies that offer a visual good or service.
Once you’ve determined each platform’s goal, you can start to reduce your options.
Consider your target audience as a next step. It’s critical to select the social media platform that most closely matches your target market because each one has a different demographic.
Snapchat and Instagram, for instance, are good options if you’re marketing to millennial customers.
You may also like best 10 tips to write engaging social media post.
Finally, you must take your resources into account. Choose a platform that you have the financial resources to invest in because some platforms require more time and effort to maintain than others.
Use effective techniques to boost visibility and reach
Utilizing efficient strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and email marketing is a great way to increase the visibility and reach of your company.
Follow updates to social media algorithms and recommended techniques
It’s critical to stay up to date with the most recent algorithms and changes in social media because of its constant evolution.
For instance, Facebook recently changed its algorithm to favor posts from friends and family over those from businesses.
As a result of this development, businesses need to develop new strategies for connecting with the platform’s target market.
The development of live streaming is another instance.
Businesses can now stream live videos on websites like Instagram and Facebook, which can be used to host Q&A sessions, give customers an inside look at your company or product, or even introduce new products.
3. Outreach Programs for Influencers
An influencer outreach program is a marketing tactic that entails locating and contacting influential people on social media to persuade them to spread the word about your product or service to their followers.
See also essential guide to LinkedIn outreach for generating B2B leads.
Three steps can be taken to begin:
Choose the appropriate influencers for your brand
It’s important to decide which influencers will best promote your brand before contacting them. Take into account an influencer’s following size and engagement rate when doing this.
To put it simply, you should give priority to working with influencers who have a lot of followers and high engagement rates (i.e., likes, comments, shares, etc.)
The content an influencer typically posts needs to be pertinent to your industry, too. For instance, a fashion brand would prefer to collaborate with fashion bloggers or Instagrammers over general lifestyle influencers.
Find an influencer who shares your brand’s values, which is more important. Working with someone who doesn’t share your vision makes no sense and will only have negative long-term effects.
Create a specific pitch for every influencer
It’s time to make contact now that you’ve decided which influencers to aim for.
Personalize your pitch rather than sending out a mass email when contacting an influencer about working with your brand.
Consider their past content and explain why you believe it would be a good fit for your brand. Take some time to look at their past posts.
Then, describe your goals for the partnership and the kind of content you want them to produce.
You’ll have a much better chance of getting their attention and ultimately landing a partnership if you can develop a customized message for each influencer that shows that you’ve taken the time to research their work and consider how they could help promote your business.
Give a valuable exchange in return
Influencers need to be paid for their work, so they won’t just promote your good or service for nothing.
Offering them a free good or service in exchange for a testimonial or a shout-out on social media is one way to achieve this.
Additionally, you could pay them a flat fee or offer a commission on any sales that result from their promotion.
Influencers are busy people, so if you want to secure a partnership, you must make it worthwhile for them.
4. Digital Sales Support
To reach and engage customers at every stage of the buying process, digital sales enablement employs digital tools and techniques.
Sales teams can connect with customers who might be hard to reach without the use of digital sales enablement tools.
Until a prospect is ready to buy, sales teams can more effectively nurture their relationships with prospects with the aid of digital sales enablement.
Which Digital Sales Enablement Tools Are Used Most Frequently?
You can reach and engage customers at every stage of the buying process using a variety of digital sales enablement tools.
Website Personalization
A tool called website personalization can be used to adjust your website’s messaging and content depending on who is visiting it.
You could serve a visitor content that is specifically suited to their needs and interests if you know they are interested in your product or service, for instance.
Lead capture forms
Visitors can request more information about your product or service by filling out lead capture forms on your website.
You can follow up with potential customers interested in finding out more about what you have to offer by gathering leads through lead capture forms.
Content marketing
To grab the interest of potential customers and establish relationships with them, content marketing involves producing and disseminating high-quality content (such as blog posts, eBooks, infographics, etc.).
By offering useful information to prospective customers, you can position yourself as a thought leader in your field and gain their trust before they are even ready to make a purchase.
Continuous Training
Salespeople used to receive training on new features and products once or twice a year. In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, this strategy is insufficient.
Businesses must give their sales teams ongoing training that addresses new products and features, market changes, and shifts in customer behavior to stay competitive.
Performance Management
To ensure that sales teams can achieve their objectives, organizations must put in place a performance management system.
Each salesperson’s progress should be monitored by this system, and it should offer evaluations of how well they are doing.
Businesses can pinpoint areas for improvement in their sales teams’ performance and offer solutions to help them do so.
Giving your sales team the advantage, they need to thrive in the market today is possible with digital sales enablement.
The Five Essential Tools for B2B social selling
The following four items are necessities for every B2B social selling team:
1. Navigator for LinkedIn Sales
The LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a potent sales tool that can support relationship building, deal closing, and prospect identification.
How does it function?
- provides helpful details about each prospect, such as their job title, company size, and location; gives access to LinkedIn’s enormous database of professionals;
- enables you to search for particular people or businesses. Using this information, you can modify your sales pitch and raise your chances of successfully closing the sale.
- enables you to create automated reminders and tasks to stay organized and on top of your prospects.
2. Lists on Twitter
You can categorize the people you follow on Twitter using lists. You are free to create as many or as few lists as you like, and you can always add or remove people from lists.
Twitter lists have two distinct advantages. First of all, they assist you in categorizing the users you follow, enabling you to quickly locate and interact with the appropriate users at the appropriate time.
They also give you the option to view tweets from a particular group of users without having to follow each one separately.
Let’s take the scenario where you’re at a conference and want to connect with other attendees on Twitter.
You could compile a list of every conference attendee you’re following, then access your list to quickly view their tweets. No more searching through your timeline for pertinent tweets!
The following three suggestions will help you use Twitter List for social selling:
Create Lists Segmented by Industry or Job Title
Imagine that you target a specific industry with your goods or services. A list of financial analysts who work for banks or other financial institutions, for instance, could be made if you sell financial software.
Then, whenever there is industry-related news (such as new financial regulations), you can quickly view tweets from professionals in your field and add your thoughts, opinions, or solutions.
This will not only help establish you as a thought leader in your field, but it will also raise consumer awareness of your brand.
Using keywords, create prospecting lists
Prospecting lists based on keywords associated with your product or service offering, in addition to industry-specific lists, are another useful strategy.
Those who tweet about needing a CRM solution or wanting to switch CRM providers, for instance, could be added to a list if you sell CRM software.
Then, whenever someone tweets about needing a new CRM solution or being unhappy with their current provider, you can get in touch with them and present yours as a substitute!
It is a fantastic way to connect with prospective customers who might not be familiar with your company yet but who have a pressing need for your good or service.
Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing
Finally, don’t forget to monitor the Twitter activity of your rivals (and other social platforms). A great way to accomplish this is by making a list specifically for your rivals.
As a result, you’ll be the first to learn whenever they tweet about something new (such as a product launch) and can tweet about it yourself!
Being proactive in this way will help guarantee that your brand is on potential customers’ minds when they are prepared to make a purchase decision.
3. Groups on Facebook
Facebook groups are excellent for interacting with and developing relationships with potential clients. You can participate in discussions, provide guidance, and establish yourself as a subject-matter expert by joining groups that are relevant to your field.
Let’s take the example of you selling software for managing social media accounts for businesses.
You could become a member of a Facebook group for small business owners and share suggestions for using social media wisely.
This promotes your software naturally and helps you gain the trust and credibility of potential customers (i.e., without paying for ads).
Two recommendations for using Facebook groups for social selling are as follows:
Join communities that relate to your target audience
The first step is to identify organizations that your potential customers are already a part of. You can accomplish this by using Facebook’s search feature and group filter.
For instance, you could look for “small business owners” or “entrepreneurs” if you sell software to small businesses.
Discuss issues and provide guidance
After joining appropriate groups, spend some time participating in conversations and giving sound advice. With potential customers, it will increase credibility and trust. It’s a wonderful chance to organically advertise your good or service.
4. Quora
One of the most well-known Q&A websites on the internet, Quora has over 300 million active users, and it can be a goldmine for companies trying to generate leads and establish relationships with potential clients.
Here’s how it functions:
You sign up for an account and begin following topics related to your business. When someone asks a question that you have the answer to, you weigh in with your professional opinion.
Not only does this help you become recognized as a thought leader in your field, but it also enables you to connect with potential clients.
What Makes Quora Useful for Social Selling?
Connecting with potential customers on Quora is a low-pressure process. Because you’re merely responding to someone’s query with useful information, you don’t come across as pushy or salesy.
You can target specific markets and industry sectors. For instance, if you sell marketing software, you can follow subjects like “digital marketing” and “SEO” to connect with potential customers.
Quora is even more valuable as a result of this targeting, which is something that Twitter and Facebook do not permit.
It enables you to exhibit your knowledge and experience without coming across as a snob. Everyone enjoys learning from a professional, but nobody likes to be sold to.
You can establish yourself as an authority in your field by answering questions on Quora without coming across as conceited or self-promotional.
5. Reddit
Users can submit, vote for, and comment on stories on Reddit, a social news aggregator. Starting to market your business and attract new clients is acceptable.
Reddit usage guidelines
Discovering the appropriate Reddit subreddit for your industry is the first step. Then, start contributing to the community by exchanging useful information and having conversations.
Once you’ve gained the community’s trust, you can begin promoting your goods and services in a way that is pertinent to their needs and beneficial to them.
More things to keep in mind include
Considering that Reddit is a community, users are quick to call out anything that seems “sales-y.” As a result, it’s critical to concentrate first and foremost on offering value.
It entails giving sound counsel, disseminating pertinent news items, and generally being a good neighbor.
Be honest about your identity and professional activities. Many subreddits forbid self-promotion, but as long as you’re upfront about your company from the beginning, you shouldn’t encounter any issues.
Many users prefer speaking with real people rather than a faceless corporation.
Every industry faces intense competition, and social media is no exception. To succeed, make sure to utilize all of your resources.
Conclusion
However, it’s important to remember that social media platforms cannot take the place of interpersonal connections in the B2B sales process.
You need to use the appropriate tools and a variety of techniques to be successful with social selling. Any B2B social seller needs to use LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, and Reddit.
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