Given that 64% of consumers prefer to shop online, the e-commerce industry is saturated with the presence of sellers due to its attractiveness. Therefore, it is important to show distinctive potential customers who are attracted to your brand online. To be in a different position from other competitors and increase customer impact, we recommend social sales. Just like traditional campaigns that revolved around "creating a sense of specialness" in the customer, the new social sales model, thanks to newly developed social platforms, allows people to engage customers face to face and the slogan "customer first" follows new levels. In this article, we take a closer look at what social selling is and how it works and introduce strategies so you can take advantage of its powerful impact.
What is Social Selling?
It is better to start the definition of social sales with what is not. In fact, social sales do not mean that we bombard people with many personal messages or tweets. These messages are known as spam in the marketing world. In fact, social sales do not just mean reaching the customer, but also building effective communication with customers, listening effectively and in a timely manner, and engaging in conversation with them at the right time.
Many sellers introduce social sales as a substitute for the dreaded act of cold calling, which is even more effective because you will be in the right place at the right time. Social selling is a sales strategy through building relationships with customers. Social marketers use a myriad of tools to interact with consumers, including social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The key to the success of a social sales campaign is to get people involved.
In the past, most sales were based on the traditional way of trading and making money from it. But these days everything is reversed. Sales professionals who use social media for sales and networks see 45% more sales opportunities and 51% more successful in achieving their monthly goals. Social sales are the art of using social media to identify, communicate, understand and nurture sales prospects.
Social Selling Statistics and Fast Facts
1. 65% of salespeople who use social networks for sales go through and complete all parts of the sales pipeline in accordance with its principles.
2. 4 out of 10 sales experts have concluded between 2 and 5 sales transactions thanks to social networks.
3. Half of the revenue in the 14 common industries, including software, health and marketing, and advertising, is influenced by social sales.
4. Using social sales tools can increase the success rate and size of the transaction by 5 and 35 percent, respectively.
The Two Parts of Social Selling: Outbound Prospecting and Inbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is a method of marketing in which a business tries to communicate with the customer using methods. A vendor who shouts the name and price of its products in the market, as well as a company that has rented large city-wide billboards, are both using extroverted marketing methods. In this model, the customer has no knowledge and readiness of your business services, and only with a method such as direct advertising, it is possible to attract his attention and become a customer of your services.
Businesses that use extroverted marketing methods are looking to find new customers to lengthen their customer chain, and that's all they care about. Also, in most of the methods of this marketing model, they do not pursue a specific goal and only try to attract a number of customers in a large statistical community with very high costs. That is, they advertise for a large statistical community to find their small target market.
In contrast to outbound marketing, there is inbound marketing, also known as attraction and abduction marketing. Inbound marketing is a model of marketing in which business owners try to attract customers using techniques such as magnets. That is, the customer follows them.
In a simple example, when one company works so well on a particular professional topic, the other does not need to be outsourced marketing, and anyone looking for services on their topic will reach them with a little question and search. Introverted marketing is not a model you want to choose and do from day one. But to reach this stage of marketing, your business needs continuous effort and professional activity over a long period of time.
Many businesses initially used extroverted marketing methods and abandoned them once they reached the ideal number of sales or branding to focus on customer acquisition techniques for inbound marketing. However, by getting acquainted with its methods, you can use it step by step from the beginning of your business to achieve the desired result after a period of time.
One of the most important things to look for in an inbound marketer is content. Using any content model, including text and articles, photos, videos, and audio files can be very vital to you. Especially for this definition in digital marketing, content is much more colorful than other modes. In the traditional business model, this model of marketing relies on other marketing methods. This means, for example, that a company producing dishwashing liquid must improve the quality of its products to the point where a customer is satisfied that they can introduce it to others through another form of marketing, which in this example is oral marketing. In today's model of digital marketing, a website can attract useful audiences through search engines for its business by producing useful and practical content and then turning them into customers through introverted marketing methods and steps.
The Benefits of Social Selling
● More leads, more sales
Gaining more clues seems like a clear advantage in social sales, but social sales have also proven themselves in creating successful sales. In fact, professionals who use social sales sell up to 78% better than salespeople in the opposite group.
● Increase customer retention
Brand loyalty is achieved through familiarity with it, and nothing beats cultivating familiarity better than constantly engaging customers. Regular interaction with consumers is a great activity to build trust.
● Better brand recognition
The first step in any sales funnel is awareness and nothing identifies a brand like continuous interaction. The more customers comment, like, and ultimately share your social media posts, the more you will be displayed on these platforms. Beyond all the social networking algorithms and rankings that are at work, it can be assumed that the story is just a new digital version of the old marketing technique, "Do-it-yourself advertising."
● Humanize your brand
We always remember faces better than letters. If this is true for humans, why not for the winners? Engaging customers makes you and your products human. This makes you more lovable and accessible to consumers.
● Internal credit management
Before buying, approximately 95% of online shoppers read previous customer reviews. If you use a social sales strategy that keeps your customers engaged with you, then you have a lot of real users (whose feedback introduces you to others).
The Best Channels for Social Selling
● Facebook
Facebook can be considered the most numerous social network in the world with a large number of users. This social network is an older version of Instagram with similar and dissimilar capabilities. On Facebook you can find text, images, videos, links, and etc, share it. If you plan to work on Facebook, be sure to optimize your content for mobile. Mobile-optimized content means content that is short, large, but well-proportioned. Facebook is a good social network for SEO and marketing.
● Instagram
Instagram can be considered one of the most popular social networks in the world. The popularity of this social network has grown to the point that it is now following in the footsteps of Facebook, even though it is a long way from Facebook. But there is a lot of hope that it will even surpass Facebook. Fortunately, Instagram users are mostly young and old, and the content on Instagram is very popular, and people spend a lot of time on it during the day. Instagram supports photo, video, and live content formats. Do not miss Instagram, whether you are a webmaster or an offline business.
● Telegram
The popularity of this messenger is still the same as before, but the amount of time people work with it has decreased. But still, this messenger is one of the best social networks for marketing with the capability of channels, groups, and robots.
● Youtube
If you are interested in the style of video content, you should definitely know the name YouTube. YouTube is a video search platform owned by Google and is one of the most popular search engines in the world. YouTube is a very good space for businesses, but growing in it requires patience and the use of different strategies and interaction with users. YouTube can also be very effective for SEO.
● LinkedIn
If your business is specialized and for professional work, Linkedin is definitely great for it. LinkedIn is a space for professionals and programmers, editors, which is a great space for these work fields and you can find a lot of customers in it.
How to Start with Social Selling
Selling a product or service can generate revenue. With the growth of offline sales systems, the desire to sell and buy online has increased. Now people trust online stores. In this unfavorable weather, crowded traffic, and high travel costs, home delivery is a desirable and economical purchase. Even in comparison to two supermarkets in a neighborhood, one of which has telephone sales and the other does not, supermarkets will not grow without this service. Let's go to the needs and prerequisites of online sales. What do you need to do to start and continue this work?
● What do you have to offer in a store?
To sell, you must have a commodity. See what sources of supply are available. Can you make your own tools? What about knitting or sewing, crafts, or handmade jewelry. You may know that there is a big toy manufacturer or seller. It does not matter what goods. The important thing is that the goods can be sold remotely. It can be packaged and can be sent by post or courier. Go to the second step whenever you have a product or products that you can sell. (It does not have to be in your warehouse, it is important that you can send it as soon as you receive the order).
● Where and how to offer your product
Today, with the help of technology and competition between software providers, creating an online store is not expensive. So to get started, you need a store. Also, do not worry. It does not require any programming knowledge.
● The store is ready, where can I get a customer?
The first people to trust you are your friends and acquaintances. This is where online social media comes in handy. How many people are on your friends' list on virtual social networks? This is the initial capital of your sales advertising. Whatever your social networking site, your friends are there. Club or Pinterest and Instagram or Facebook are no different. Introduce your products wherever you are a member and have friends in your circle.
● Attract free traffic
The best visitors to any site are first and foremost loyal users who directly type in your address or call from a list of their favorite sites, and then there are visitors who come to your site from Internet search engines. Someone in Google who is looking to buy a girl's pants and has reached your site and you have this product, Google has done the best service for you and the customer has sent pockets and cash to your site.
● Use your public relations
Write a good letter (do not exaggerate, write right and correct), introduce your products very briefly and send it to those with whom you have an email contact. Do not be extravagant in this matter so that your letter does not get in the form of spam, in which case it will be a negative advertisement for you. The subject of the letter, the quality of its photos, the brief but clear content can be useful in attracting the user.
● Use content
Create a blog on your site. Write about how to produce or how to maintain or work with products.
This content has several advantages:
● Assures the user that you know what you are doing
● Engages the user more with the product.
● Search engines will trust you more and will give you a better ranking by increasing the density of keywords on the site.
● You may be able to publish some of this content outside of your own site and link to your own site. This will introduce new visitors to your store.
● Does your phone have a camera? Does he also film?
So what are you waiting for? Use the camera and film the product. Talk about it later with the free software on the Internet. It is enough to speak honestly. For example, explain the fabric of this product from which factory. If you also film how to cut and sew, that would be great. Record with your own voice, it becomes more trustworthy.
Advanced Social Selling Strategies and Expert Tips
● Your sales team will be able to establish effective and strong relationships with customers
Let's face two facts: The first is that no one likes cold calling. (Keep in mind, of course, that cold calling is different from talking on the phone) The second fact is that this type of marketing is no longer effective. 90% of decision-makers say they never pay attention to cold calls. The fact is that as a decision-maker, you do not go to buy a product or service until you feel the need. But with social media tools, you will be able to find people who are talking or gaining information about you, your competitors, or the industry in which you operate, and by giving them the right information, you can easily build relationships with them. Until the right time comes.
● Your customers are already engaged in social shopping
Social shopping means just as you use social sales tools to reach and connect with customers. People in the online world are looking for sellers or suppliers, and in fact, like you, they are using these tools to listen to identify the best one before contacting any of the sellers. Seventy-five percent of B2B buyers and 84 percent of executives use communications and information on their social networks as part of their shopping chain, according to the CEB.
● Your biggest competitors are already using this method
Most sales professionals or top sellers are using this method of selling, especially young sellers. Some of them consider the use of these tools necessary for sales and as an integral part of their successful sales process. If you still do not use social sales, know that reaching out to your competitors will soon be a vital challenge for your business.
Social Selling Tools
● OptinMonster tool
One of the best tools for social media marketing is OptinMonster. This powerful tool is used to generate the content that users need. With its help, you can create a more beautiful landing page for users. The OptinMonster tool is able to show you the most visited posts and the most missed posts. Of course, to install this program, you must also pay for it.
● Audiense tool for social media marketing
Another social media advertising tool is called Audiense. This tool helps to discover new audiences with the help of artificial intelligence. You can also use it to categorize brand audiences. The Audiense tool is capable of tracking and reporting, so you can use it to reach a wider audience.
This tool can be used to build relationships with customers.
● Tweepi tool
Tweepi is a tool you can use to market on Twitter. This tool is used to increase the number of followers. You can also use it to find users who are more interested in your topics. Then by mentioning these users in tweets, you can engage them in content marketing. In this way, by tagging, they become interested in the contents of the page and start commenting.
● Bitrix24
Bitrix24 service is a collaboration platform that was introduced in 2012 and provided the right conditions for full social collaboration. The Bitrix24 website offers great tools for effective social communication, teamwork as well as great management tools for business owners. In this way, the project management and integration of the activities of an organization will be done in the best possible way and completely centralized. It is interesting to know that using the tools provided on this website is free for a group of up to 12 people.
