Crazy little thing called...
Social Selling
Ionut Constantinescu
Create Direct |
Romania
A preview of the journey
Start
Social... what?
, Please, tell me more!
What’s the big
Well, I’m not buying it!
fuss?
2
Okay, you had my curiosity...
Now you have my attention
Ask yourself this...
Some questions you need to ask yourself
...
Bring it on!!!
Okay, NOW we are ready!
3
The process, simplified
Follow the social brick road to the magical land of
closed deals!
The holistic aproach
Sales + Marketing = LOVE!
Setting things up
Transform the sales and marketing teams!
4
Case studies!
Well, if it’s working for these guys...
Conclusion
Remind me again, why are we doing this?,
Finish
5
What is social selling?
Jamie Shanks: Meeting the buyer where the
John Byrne: Socially selling like any sales skill it is a
buyer is and arming themselves with information,
to make informed decisions – ONLINE. Social
Selling is also about leveraging these online tools
to help a sales professional have a more pertinent
and effective conversation with their buyers
discipline. By using social media, with particular emphasis
on LinkedIn to connect, inform, educate and influence your
prospective buyers and existing clients. It does not
eliminate the need for traditional professional sales skills,
rather it can enhance them helping to elevate the
salesperson to a Trusted Advisor.
Social selling is
the new norm.
But it’s a tool, not
a magic wand.
Why is it important?
72%
64%
Source: DemandGen
Source: Hubspot
72% of buyers use social media to
research before making a purchase.
They’re looking up product and brand
information. They’re checking
references. They’re asking the opinion
of their connections and
your customers. Half of the buying
process is completed before a sales
person even reaches them.
64% of sales teams that
use inbound social selling
reach their quotas
77%
Source: Hubspot
77% of B2B purchasers said that they
would not even speak to a sales person
until they had done their own research
81%
Source: LinkedIn
Your social media presence is your
introduction to these buyers. In fact,
81% are more likely to engage
with a strong, professional
brand.
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Employees are (already) social
Employees interact on social networks
on a daily basis.
Facebook: 63% at least once/day (40%, multiple)
Instagram: 57% at least once/day (35%, multiple)
Twitter: 46% at least once/day (29%, multiple)
56% of employees are either content
curators or creators.
46% like to share original content (photos/video)
41% share content they find elsewhere online
Employees average 200+ connections
per social network.
Facebook: 285 friends
Twitter: 208 followers
LinkedIn: 190 connections
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Sorry to let you know, but...
Awareness
The marketing funnel is dead!
Interest
The new customer path to purchase is much more winding and sophisticated,
and smart companies have begun to adapt to the new approach by
implementing a social selling strategy.
Desire
One that takes into consideration that prospects engage with companies at
various points in the process, and each comes to the interaction with a
different level of knowledge, interest, and sophistication. What was once a
linear, guided process is now a complex, non-linear journey.
Action
Oh no, what happened?
The rise of social media gave consumers more options than ever before. Even more importantly, prospects now have the
ability to perform many of the funnel tasks on their own. From researching features to talking to current product owners,
consumer education has largely become a do-it-yourself effort.
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There’s a new model in town
Buy
Explore
This phase encompasses all the
complex tasks that today’s
sophisticated consumers perform
when shopping for an item. Extensive
Internet searches, hands-on
experimentation, such as test-driving
a car, reading reviews etc.
Discover
Similar to the Awareness step, .this point
stresses the importance of marketing
strategies that let prospects know about
your company.
At this point, prospects are ready to complete a
transaction. Yet they may go through a few more
iterations before making the purchase. Looking
for coupons or promo codes or searching for
sales are typical behaviours.
Engage
The actual interaction with the
brand. Such as using the product
or service, visiting the website for
usage ideas, and engaging with
other customers.
The New Path to Purchase
Starts with aligning the sales and marketing
strategy with the consumer decision journey
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Ask yourself this
What resources
will I need?.
Do I trully need
it?
Is my client ./
company prepared
for this?
What will I do
with all the
money, fame
and success?
“Easy” as 1, 2, 3 
It’s not simple but it does worth it!
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Research
Set-up
Build
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Research
01
02
03
Social Listening
Identify the relevant conversations in order to
capture relevant buying signals.
Social Searching
Identify sale opportunities and refine your social
listening keywords.
Social prospecting
Find professionals within your target market and
build segmented lists.
Stay focused!
Research can easily become overwhelming or paralyzing. It is therefore essential to have purpose and pragmatism in the
research efforts. Focus on key people, keywords and conversations.
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Set-up: The foundation
Social profiles
Create professional social
profiles for both of your
employees, your products and
your company.
Content
Set-up a monthly content
calendar. Start a blog, create
white-papers, case studies,
research and publish them on
your social channels
Training
Train your employees on how,
what and when to communicate
with their contacts. Set-up a
crisis management response
plan.
Measurement
Decide on the KPI’s that will
allow you to measure your
social selling success. Choose
the right tools for the job!
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Set-up: the sales team
Start transforming your sales-team’s online brand and provide the tools and training needed so they can stay authentic
online. Concentrate less on the sales angle and more about sharing quality content and building connections.
Authority
Buyers don’t want to close with a salesperson,
they want to find an expert and partner who
can help their business succeed.
Credibility
Curating content, answering questions, and
providing assistance to buyers (even outside
your products and services) will help you build
credibility.
Presence
Be present where the buyer is – LinkedIn,
Twitter, Facebook Groups, and other industry
sites are all great networking sites where
sales professionals can find buyers or build a
great reputation.
Trust
Trust is the basis by which every B2B
buyer makes their decision. Trust is the
key to every business opportunity online
and is typically the last barrier in the
purchase decision.
Consideration
Once you have the buyer’s trust,
they’ll reach out when they see that
you can help them.
Use SSI
The Social Selling Index (SSI)
measures progress across
the four pillars of social selling. See
it here
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Set-up: the marketing team
Give Sales visibility into their
prospect’s digital behaviour
Make your sales organization a
partner on all programs
and campaigns
Use SM tools to track the
conversations that people
are having around your brand and
your industry and the content they
use
Help Sales understand the best
use for all content you offer
The Marketer
Empower your sales force to have intelligent conversations.
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Case study: PayPal
Challenges
Results
Social networking has become one of
the strongest lead sources for
marketing
Identify key decision makers
Manage multiple stakeholders
across the prospect company
More relevant points of contact keep
momentum through the sales process
Maintain momentum through a
lengthy sales process
20-30 of the deals being worked on at
any time are sourced through LinkedIn
Social Selling Solutions:
Find connected decision makers through LinkedIn profiles and Advanced Search
Use social networking and research to map the buying committee of prospective client
organizations
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Case study: ADP
Challenges
Results
Leads worked by sales increased 21%
Deliver better qualified leads to
sales
Win rate of leads increased 103%
Improve salesperson productivity
Total amount of won deals increased
26%
Generate net new sales revenue
Revenue increased 48% year-over-year
Social Selling Solutions:
ADP aligned marketing and sales to adopt a common definition of a good lead
ADP’s marketing team targeted content to stakeholders at various levels
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Case study: Oracle
Challenges
Results
Establishing relationships through
shared connections on LinkedIn led to a
30% increase in engagement with
key connections.
Quickly connect with buying
committees
Generating lead lists was inefficient
and time-consuming
Sales cycles shortened by 20% due to
relationship building
through social networking.
Long sales cycles
Social Selling Solutions:
Used LinkedIn’s tools to empower marketing to quickly generate lead lists
Create warm introductions and better relationship building through social networking
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Case study: IBM
Challenges
Results
400% Increase in Sales During B2B
Pilot Program
Make social a prominent—rather
than marginalized—part of the sale
process.
3,000 new LinkedIn followers which
therefore expanded their reach from
54,000 to 1.3 million.
Resistance from the staff who
complained that they didn’t have the
time to engage in social.
Social Selling Solutions:
A training into social selling of the seven B2B sales reps in IBM’s Cloud Computing product division
Deploying social listening to help discover conversations that were occurring about cloud computing.
Inside and outsode content provided to the teams to be used during social conversations.
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Social media and social selling can accelerate finding,
managing and closing business. While traditional selling
involves reaching out to customers where you think they are
or want them to be, if you get social selling right, you’re
reaching people where they actually are, and you have them
reaching out to you as well.
- Simon Porter, Vice President of IBM
Thank You!
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