Our 7 step guide to social selling
@digirank
What is social selling?
Using social media to find the right people, gain insights into their behaviour and target them effectively.
@digirank
70% of B2B decision makers use insights from social media as part of their decision making process…
@digirank
67% of the buyer’s journey is now completed digitally
(SiriusDecisions report)
@digirank
The challenges
• Limited time• Inaccurate analytics • Measuring ROI
• Insufficient experience • No prescriptive process• Lack of strategy
@digirank
So what’s the answer...
@digirank
Step one: Understanding the buying cycle
(and where social media fits into that cycle)
@digirank
1.Change in status quo 2.Commit to
change• EDUCATION PHASE
3. Exploring the options
4. Committing to an option
• SOLUTION PHASE
5. Justifying the decision 6. Making a
selection• SELECTION PHASE
@digirank
Step Two: SMART goals@digirank
SMART goals
•Specific •Measurable •Attainable •Relevant • Timely
@digirank
Step three: Spruce up your profiles @digirank
If I was to land on your company profile what would make me hit follow?
• What are your USPs? • Are these clearly communicated?
Things I’d look at: • Your timeline • Your bio • IMAGERY
@digirank
Step Four: Finding your target audience
@digirank
How to find your known target audience (that doesn’t already follow you on social media)
• Talk to your sales team – new leads, closed leads etc…
• Newsletters • CRM• Forums• Facebook remarketing
@digirank
Let’s talk about Facebook remarketing a bit more….
@digirank
Client one
What we did: • Set up Facebook remarketing • Created a custom audience – all visitors in
180 days excluding people who already like the client on Facebook
• Promoted a post encouraging this audience to like the client on Facebook
• Spend: £20
@digirank
And the results…
• Likes on Facebook more than doubled in three days
• Over 100% increase in referred traffic to the site from Facebook
• Average time on site increased from four to nine minutes
@digirank
Amazing!@digirank
How to find unknown/new target audiences
• Track hashtags • Create audience
personas• Google Alerts • News • Company blogs • Facebook groups • Linkedin groups
• Linkedin advanced search
• Twitter advanced search
• Events and networking offline
• Leveraging influencers
@digirank
Step five: organise & listen@digirank
Organise your social media audience by…• Industry• Job role• Character • Etc..
Creating niche audiences makes it easier to share the right content with the right people.
How?• Twitter lists• Saved searches • Facebook custom audiences• Excel
@digirank
Listen to your target audience to understand exactly what interests them, what they value and what would be most useful to them in relation to your business.
@digirank
Knowledge of your audiences not only helps you sell better, it helps you create effective marketing strategies.
So make sure your insights feed into your content strategy, online marketing strategy and wider business strategy too!
@digirank
Step six: connect and nurture@digirank
Do not preside over your audience like a distant big brother type figure. Get in there and engage. Comment, ask questions, share insights and so on.
Genuine interactions build trust, and trust is great for sales.
Don’t forget to look for trigger events…
B2C:• Use Twitter advanced search to find questions• Key dates and holidays• Seasons• Events • Trends• New products
B2B:• Internal business changes • Market changes
@digirank
Step seven: analyse & improve @digirank
Tools for measuring success?
• In-platform analytics • Google Analytics • Third party analytics – we like SproutSocial• Internal feedback• Customer feedback
@digirank
By listening on Twitter we noticed three things:
• A lot more female motorcycle riders were tweeting when looking for shopping advice
• More female motorcycle riders were also tweeting about getting great shopping advice in our client’s stores
• There was an obvious gap in experience/knowledge online
Client two
@digirank
What we did….
We created a motorcycle clothing guide for women only, featuring advice on the proper fit, popular brands and the specific kit they need.
@digirank
Promoted on Facebook:• 161 likes, 35 shares, 17 comments • Referral traffic spending over 7 minutes on
site
Promoted in the newsletter:• 39% of users from the newsletter were new
users
• Links to the site• Sales• More budget for the future!And the results…
@digirank
In conclusion
• You choose how you apply social selling to help achieve your business goals
• Social selling/media is not a silo. It relies on excellent content, Online PR, a killer website etc…
• Strategy, strategy, strategy
@digirank
Useful stuff
• Ways To Improve Your Social Media Profile Hootsuite• The What, Why & How Of Social SellingDigirank• The Anatomy Of A Social Buyer Digital Doughnut• How WhatsApp
Became A Store Front For Diamond Rings Forbes • Leading With IntentGoogle
@digirank