Ways to Add 'Social Selling' to Your Marketing Mix

The birth of social media has caused all marketing professionals to alter their old marketing techniques to new ways in order to churn their prospects into customers.

This is the age where the power of the market lies in the hands of the 'social media user' and not in the hands of the marketer. Thus, makes it sparsely difficult to fathom what your potential customers are thinking about or what they feel is ideal.

 A research firm named Forrester found that buyers today might be up to 

90% through their decision-making process before they even reach out to the 

vendor. This is a problem for all marketers because they must find new ways 

to become part of the process earlier, to become part of the conversation before 

the customer has already made up his mind.

Social selling has brought a paradigm shift; it helps you to engage in two-way

communication with customers and potential customers. By communicating with

audience via social media, which is ideal for millions, marketers can listen and

respond while giving helpful information. This would create relationships thus

creating sales.

Adding social selling to your marketing can be quite a hill to climb. With a great

number of marketers in the niche and millions of would-be customers, this would

be a day's job. But social selling goes beyond responding to posts and direct

messages; it means tapping into your valuable customer data and finding exactly

the prospects you should focus on.

Listed below the steps to making social selling easier:

1. Focus Your Efforts

Don't waste your time being on many social media platforms all the time. You

should do research to know who your target audiences are and their complaints,

then network with them and present your product as a solution to command sales.

2. Listen First

Social selling is unique from the old ways of marketing via traditional paid advertising,

cold calling or email. This requires a two-way conversation thus the marketer

should always listen first. During conversations, identify the problems among

your target audience, and seeing how they interact with others, marketers can

 have a better idea of how to network with their target audiences. You should

note the topics that drive the most conversation and how they respond to

questions or share their opinions freely.

3.  Speak Carefully

Offer something of value to your target group and refrain from direct sales pitch.

 When you do feel comfortable that you can offer something of value to your group.

Using social media as an advertising front, the most important thing is to earn trust.

Then, provide helpful hints and educational tips beyond your product sales to your

group to gain credibility. Once you achieve this, engage with your potential customers

by making a connection based on an issue or concern.

4. Be Consistent

In the age of auto-responders and automated phone trees, customers would appreciate

a personal response to their inquiry, and social media allows you to make a personal

connection. It is very important to maintain the same consistent message that your

potential customers have come to know and trust, just as you do on your website,

paid advertising and other mediums. Have fun, be creative and provide relevant

information when give the opportunity.

5. Provide Service Beyond the Sale

Most marketers stop interacting with their customers once there has been a sale.

Thus, providing helpful tips and ongoing support to your customers, you can

transform them to a battalion of loyal brand advocates that would recommend

your product to people in their social niches thereby continuing the word-of-mouth

cycle which can spur future customer acquisition.

Follow my blog for more marketing tips and ideas to help your business.

Ciao' for now,

Danna

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