Email Lead Generation is one of the fastest, most effective ways to turn cold contacts into warm B2B leads for your business. Once you have your leads, though, you need to determine what tactics you will use to progress your leads through your funnel.
For the past two decades, sales reps have used email, phone calls, and in-person meetings to develop relationships with customers. Now, though, social media has established itself on an equal footing with these tactics, and concept of social selling has entrenched itself as a viable way to convert leads into sales.
The challenge for salespeople is to understand the importance of social selling, learn how it can complement an Email Lead Generation strategy, and learn how to use social selling to position themselves as value providers in the eyes of their buyers and industry-specific social media communities.
What is Social Selling?
Social selling is the use of social media channels to find and engage potential customers. By using social media to engage with potential customers, sales reps can stay top-of-mind with buyers and stakeholders throughout the buying cycle, and tap into conversations to learn about their potential customers’ pain points, needs and desires. Sales reps can also use social media to position themselves as experts in a particular field, and, by sharing quality, relevant content, can grow their reputations as people who are trustworthy, authentic and provide value. When it comes to making initial contact, sales reps can gain a social selling advantage by using Email Lead Generation. Email Lead Generation establishes the relationship by converting contacts into leads, so when reps reach out via social media, the conversation can have a more progressive tone rather than an introductory one.
The Evolution of the B2B Salesperson/Buyer Relationship
The internet has made it easier than ever to access information. As such, B2B buyers do not need a sales rep to educate them about a product or service – they can educate themselves. In fact, according to a study by CEB, B2B buyers typically complete 57% of the buying decision before they’ve even spoken with a sales rep. And since buyers no longer need to consult with a sales rep for simple education, sales reps have lost the opportunities to develop the relationship through the education process. The result is B2B buyers hold the power. The key for reps is to insert themselves as early as possible in the buying cycle so they remain top-of-mind with buyers. Social selling has evolved as means to help sales reps maintain awareness, and combined with Email Lead Generation, can increase sales reps’ chances of converting contacts into leads, and staying top-of-mind throughout the buying cycle.
What Can Companies Do?
According to a study by the Sales Management Association, two-thirds of employers have no social media strategy in place for their sales organization. In fact, some companies even outright ban employees from accessing social media at work.
B2B companies need to understand that the salesperson-buyer relationship is changing, and that embracing social selling as a tactic can help them generate more business.
The numbers don’t lie. Consider this study by the Aberdeen Group that found that 72.6% of salespeople that use social selling tactics in their sales process exceeded their quotas 23% more often than their peers. Or this statistic from the Edelman Trust Barometer that states that 84% of B2B decision-makers begin their buying process with a referral. Social selling is already an important component of the B2B sales process, and companies that are not using it need to understand its value and importance.
Companies need to invest into understanding the evolving methods of digital communication, not only with leads, but with potential leads. Email Lead Generation was created specifically to allow companies to send emails to a purchased list of cold contacts so they can turn them into B2B leads. This tactic, combined with social selling, gives sales teams a method of driving leads to their funnels, and another method of progressing them through the sales process. These tactics used in tandem establish a solid communications baseline that can be further advanced with additional progression tactics.
How Can Salespeople Engage on Social Media?
As previously mentioned, Email Lead Generation is a great way to bring in new leads, and social media is a valuable tool that every company should use to progress leads. In fact, going forward, understanding exactly how to engage on social media is crucial to the selling process. How sales reps approach social selling depends on what they are attempting to accomplish, as different goals require different approaches. For example, if you use an Email Lead Generation campaign to generate leads, and your goal is to progress those leads through the sales process, a rep has numerous options.
Using LinkedIn as an example, a rep could send a request to connect to the new lead. Once the new lead has accepted the request, the new lead is now privy to the sale rep’s LinkedIn postings and vice versa. This means that any time either the rep or the lead posts something, it will show up on the other’s newsfeed and can be liked or commented on.
Which leads to the next point – posting regularly. The top social sellers are active on social media, posting at least once per day. Posts can include anything from content developed by your marketing team such as white papers and case studies, to studies from third parties, to infographics, to news articles specific to your potential clients’ industries. Posting high-value content on a regular basis can establish you as someone dedicated to the betterment of the industry, and can keep you top-of-mind among your potential clients. Reps can also join groups that are specific to their clients’ industries. In groups, reps can start and contribute to conversations, and help grow the collective knowledge of the group. LinkedIn even rewards top contributors by prominently displaying their profiles, providing you with additional exposure.
A key item salespeople need to understand is that social selling is not about making a sales pitch. It’s about offering real value by providing content and information that helps the people they are trying to sell to. Many users will exclusively use the sales-pitch method, but this is largely ineffective and does nothing to establish or maintain your credibility.
Combining Social Selling and Email Lead Generation
Social selling is becoming one of the most important ways for B2B sales reps to stay top of mind among buyers and stakeholders. By encouraging social selling among its sales teams, companies can enjoy greater awareness and can ingratiate themselves with potential customers early in the buying cycle.
Companies that use Email Lead Generation software are at an even greater advantage. Using Email Lead Generation to generate leads from a purchased list of contacts allows them to greatly reduce the time it takes to generate leads, and can help them ensure a continuous flow of leads to their funnel. Combined with social selling and other progression tactics, Email Lead Generation can provide sales, marketing and recruitment professionals with a suite of tactics that can turn cold contacts into warm leads and ultimately paying customers.
To see how Email Lead Generation can help you maintain the volume and velocity of leads to your funnel, sign up for a short, one-on-one demo today.
