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4 steps to an effective social selling strategy

4 steps to an effective social selling strategy

Finding new customers has become increasingly difficult for many small businesses. Find out how to fix it with social selling.

Finding new customers has become increasingly difficult, especially for many small businesses.

Unlike large companies with dedicated marketing and sales teams, startup founders are often required to have several caps to run their businesses, including administration and production, which means leaves very little time for commercial prospecting.

Yet without new prospects, there can be no new sales.

But then, how can your small business generate new qualified leads with very little time and money?

Well, using a technique called Social Selling.

What is Social Selling?

By definition Social Selling is the use of social media platforms, combined with processes, allowing you to find your prospects and increase your sales potential. Basically, Social Selling boils down to building relationships with potential prospects.

But why should you put your time and effort into using social media to find and connect with your prospects?

Today, 74% of B2B buyers do more than half of their searches on the internet before making an offline purchase.

Whether we like it or not, Social Selling is there and it is growing. The reality is that your competitors provide useful content to your prospects and customers.

Your prospects will eventually appeal to the company that has helped them throughout their purchase process. The question is, when your prospects do a search, are you or your competitors finding them?

Social Selling is currently producing amazing results for small businesses in B2B. I will share with you my best tips for helping your small business prosper by using Social Selling with LinkedIn.

4 Steps to an Effective Social Selling Strategy

Before you explain how to use Social Selling with LinkedIn to generate more leads and customers, there are three important things you need to do:

  • Have a complete and professional LinkedIn profile that accurately represents your personal brand and your business.

  • Join relevant LinkedIn groups that your target audience belongs to (to increase the size of your network).

  • Increase your network. People can only find you if you are in their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level relationship networks, or if you are a member of the same group.

Step 1: Prospecting on Linkedin

There are two ways to prospect on LinkedIn. The first is by looking for prospects and the second by facilitating their search.

By having a complete, professional LinkedIn profile and having optimized it with keywords, you have already made the task easier for your prospects to find you.

Also read: Stop selling websites to micro, small, and medium enterprises

The other method of prospecting is to actively search for your target customer. There are a number of places on LinkedIn to search for prospects, including those who have seen your profile , people who have also visited, the Notifications tab , LinkedIn groups, and the Advanced Search feature.

Step 2: Make a first contact

After finding your potential prospects, you will have to connect with them.

This process begins with a connection request. You will need to customize your connection request by explaining why you are doing it.

Step 3: Build relationships

Building a true relationship with your connections is an essential point in Social Selling. Once your request is accepted, try to find out more about your contact.

Start a dialogue about something you have in common, something you read in their profile or what they shared.

Send them relevant information for their business. Use the golden rule “Who gives receives”.

Be careful not to make your ad! Nothing more annoying for LinkedIn users, and it will destroy the trusting relationship you have tried to build.

Step 4: Go Offline

I am often remarked before the start of my training: “Yes but Social Selling is virtual, it is not a real human relationship.”

As you will have understood, you have to transform the virtual relationship into real relationship, whether by a phone call, a Skype meeting or even appointments. It is offline that you will convert a prospect into a customer.

Create a daily practice in Social Selling

You can quickly and easily generate new connections with your potential prospects, and this by taking only 15 to 30 minutes a day. The key to any successful Social Selling strategy is consistency. Set yourself a goal of realizable number of connections per day and stick to it!

Social Selling is not something complicated or to be feared. Social Selling is about helping your prospects and building a relationship with them. LinkedIn is the ideal platform for small businesses with time and a limited budget to find leads and start this networking process.

Remember, if you are not able to create relationships and help your prospects, someone else will.

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