How to Use Social Media to Get Sales

First thing first; social media does NOT fix a broken business. I have had so many business owners and entrepreneurs approach me and say “I want more sales with social media NOW”. Unless your business has incorporated social media with your marketing strategy, and sales funnel you won’t be able to fully reap the benefits.

Social media is more than just posting an update on Facebook or sending a Tweet. As a business, you need to find a way to connect with your target market in an engaging way whilst also making sure they included in every stage of your sales funnel. Here is how to use social media to get sales.

I came across a great visual from Rohan Ayyar on Search Engine Watch that took the traditional sales funnel and created a new one, named the purchase funnel which is a consumer focused marketing model.

Of course there are going to be different variations of a sales funnel as social media continues to evolve however, this funnel is definitely the one that I feel is most sincere in how we should approach social media.

Let’s break down the image;

Awareness

You might not know where your customer has come from, and this might be the first time they have come across your business so building your awareness through sharable content is crucial. The first impression is always the most important so you be as engaging as possible.

There are various different ways you can build your awareness and engagement. Ask your audience questions and encourage feedback. Remember, engaged audiences are more likely to become brand advocates. There are some great tools you can use to stay on top of your social media analytics and respond in real time – try Hootsuite.

Familiarity

Your customer is now aware of your brand, and has become familiar with your business. Having a community that is familiar with your brand gives you the upper hand when they are making a purchasing decision between two brands.

This is where your community turns into followers that like your social media activity, and read your blogs online. Email marketing steps in at the point, as you should be finding ways to generate leads through e Courses, Downloads and other complementary content.

Consideration

The consideration stage of this funnel is where the customer is looking at purchasing your product/service. They will be comparing prices and options before making their decision. To make sure the “consideration” turns into a purchase, you need to build, and grow your reputation.

Social media is a great place to share positive reviews about your product/service and will build your reputation. Having “share” buttons on your website is a great place to start when sharing your message across multiple platforms.

Purchase

The penultimate step in this purchasing funnel, is a customer’s buying your product/service. This is where most businesses lose their momentum as they think the engagement stops here. It doesn’t. You need to be engaging throughout and after the purchasing phase to make sure they are staying in your sales funnel, and could potentially spend their money with you again.

Loyalty

This is the crucial stage for understanding whether you can build on your customer retention, or whether you’ve got a one stop shopper. Some of your customers will leave and never purchase from you again whereas others will return – this depends on how transparent and helpful you are through the purchasing process.

This is a huge priority as returning customers is what ultimately brings in new customers when leaving great reviews, and sharing your content.

Don’t forget to use social media as a customer service outlet, reward those who are loyal to your business and always stay engaged with your customer at every touchpoint of their purchasing journey.

Source

Read More

8 Social Media Tricks to Make People Crave Your Products

Are you wondering how to make a real impact on social media? Social media is a great way of selling your products or services, especially if you know how to get people engaged and excited. It takes a lot of hard work, but the results are spectacular if you go about it the right way. The good news is that it isn’t rocket science – there are lots of social media tricks that make people really want to buy from you. Here are eight of the best to get you started.

Use Great Graphics

Most people think visually – they respond much better to pictures than they do to words. If your product looks great, then show it off with bright, high-quality photos and even videos. Make sure that your images are interesting – don’t just use boring product shots. Instead, use images of people using your products. For example, if you’re selling lifejackets, show high-energy shots of the world’s greatest white-water rafting locations. You can even try a little visual humor. Even if your product isn’t something you can photograph, you can still generate lots of visual interest by using infographics – for instance, come up with some fascinating facts and then use a site such as Easel.ly to build an infographic around these.

Build Excitement Early

If you’re going to launch a new product online, don’t wait until the last minute to start building excitement. Instead, start talking about your product on social media long before you’re ready to take orders. Create buzz by releasing teaser videos, set up waiting lists, give people a behind-the-scenes look as you develop your product – there are lots of ways to build anticipation. Don’t give away all your secrets, though – people love a mystery and will keep coming back to find out more. If you do this, you’ll have them lining up to buy your product when you do launch.

Create Relationships

It’s called social media for a reason. One of the fastest ways to annoy people on social media is to start out with a hard product pitch. With social media, selling comes later. Start out by building relationships with your audience, so that you get positive engagement. Give them useful information, help them solve problems, entertain them – but don’t start selling until they’re ready. Once you see that you have a social media following that’s actively interested in your products, this is the time to start to promote. But don’t just switch from relationship building to an outright sales campaign – think about how you can leverage your relationship and keep your audience onside.

Get Bloggers to Review Your Products

Ask yourself this. When you buy something, who do you trust for recommendations? If you’re like most people, you ask family or friends what they think. It’s similar on social media – people pay attention to what bloggers say. This is because bloggers are independent and don’t have a vested interest in selling your product. Not only that, good bloggers have a huge following, so they give you a ready-made audience. You can reach out to bloggers yourself or, to make the process simple, you can connect with bloggers on sites such as Tomoson.  

Get A Little Crazy

On social media, people want to be entertained, not bored. Don’t be afraid to get inventive, even a little insane. Don’t offend anyone – but it’s okay to be a bit nutty. This doesn’t work for everything – for instance, stay serious if you’re selling security systems – but more times than not you’ll generate much more engagement if you do something truly memorable. If you’re selling pizzas, for example, run a social media campaign that shows how pizzas have inspired great people throughout history – such as Galileo dropping a cannonball and a pizza off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Or, was it the Leaning Tower of Pizza? The possibilities are endless – just use your imagination.

Special Offers

One of the great tricks of selling on social media is to make people feel special. You’ll build real loyalty if you give exclusive offers that people can only get when they follow you online. Try giving away limited-time discount coupons available only on your social media channels, or run contests where people get a free entry for sharing their ideas and stories. Just make sure that your offers are truly exclusive, not something you offer to everyone.

Share Customer Reviews

We’ve already talked about getting bloggers to review your product. But some of the most powerful reviews come from customers themselves – after all, they’ve actually bought the product and used it. Customers love when they can give their feedback, and will often write much more personal reviews that resonate with other potential buyers. If you share customer reviews on your social channels – for example, tweet out links or send Facebook updates – then you’ll encourage other customers to review your product as well. Don’t worry if you get some negative customer reviews – everyone does. As long as the majority are positive, you’ll still see huge benefits.

Source

Read More

The Business Case for Social Selling [Infographic]

inShare

This post originally appeared on HubSpot's Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

If you haven't started incorporating social media into your sales process, you're not alone.According to a survey from PeopleLinx, only 31% of sellers currently use social to sell.

But a quick look at the data backing social selling indicates that the trend will only get stronger in the years to come. For instance, 79% of salespeople who actively engage on social media outperform their peers, and over half of buyers consult social channels as part of their research processes -- up from 19% in 2012.

While there's no shame in not being a social seller today, salespeople who refuse to join the party will get left behind in the near future. Need some convincing? Check out the data in the following infographic from Sales For Life. Better to join the ranks of social sellers late than never.

107

Source

Read More

Social Selling: How to Reach Buyers Earlier & Shorten the Sales Cycle

Sales and marketing professionals both know, when it comes to reaching a prospective buyer and closing a deal — timing is everything. As the sales industry advances and consumer purchasing evolves, the research, technology and training that goes into closing a deal has changed. Over the past few years, the explosion of social media, mobile technology and unlimited access to information has turned the sales process on it’s head. Instead of cold calling, customers are seeking connections. Buyer trust is no longer gained just through advertising and awareness, but through expert advice and thought leadership. To do this, savvy sales and marketing professionals are turning to social selling.

Stay Ahead of the Competition

Organizations that are succeeding in this new era are training their sales force in social selling and reaching customers through top social media networks like LinkedIn and Twitter. Aberdeen Research, shows that 64% of sales teams that use social selling hit quota compared to 49% that don’t use social selling. To stay ahead of the competition, modern sales professionals and marketers are working in tandem to create social selling programs and equip their sales teams with relevant content to share.

Put Cold Calling on Hold

If your sales rep calls a prospect, you can expect that he or she will look up the sale rep on social media and check out their presence online and if they don’t have a credible personal brand on social media, the prospect probably won’t take the call. According DemandGen, 77% of buyers won’t even speak with sales until they have performed their own research online. For example, research from the CMO Council shows that the average buyer consumes five pieces of content before they’re ready to speak with a sales professional. Sales teams that are succeeding in this new era are reaching these buyers earlier in the process through social selling.

Ignite Your Sales Team to Drive 10X More Leads

Interested in learning more about social selling? This guide will get you what you need to get your sales team ready to master social selling — in just 2 minutes a day. The opportunity is out there, your biggest risk is not taking it.

Download the ebook to learn:

• How sales will drive more opportunities and close deals with social selling
• How to easily and efficiently train your team to sell on social
• How to position your sales force as thought leaders
• Proven social selling best practices from leading brands

Source

Read More

How to Spread Holiday Cheer on Social Media

Who has time for social media over the holidays?! Businesses are so busy during the holiday season that social media is often overlooked. Customers, however, check social media all throughout the holidays to find exclusive deals, enter contests, share stories and view photos and videos.

By this time, most of your holiday marketing campaigns should be planned out and activated. But there’s still time to schedule social media posts for this month. Use your social media pages to drive sales and increase engagement over the holidays. If you want to make the most of your time so you can focus on holiday sales, automate your social media posting so your pages are updated without you having to spend time manually posting.

1. Run a holiday giving campaign.

The holidays are a great time to show your support for your local community. Pledge to donate a portion of your holiday revenue to a local nonprofit organization. Update your social media pages frequently to show your progress toward reaching your holiday giving goal. Getting involved with your community shows your customers that they are choosing a business with a strong sense of corporate citizenship and a commitment to important issues. These posts are likely to receive a lot of comments, likes, retweets and shares.

2. Increase excitement with a fun holiday contest.

Social media is a great place for running contests. And the holiday season is the ideal time for giving awesome gifts and making dreams come true. Social media contests are most effective when they get people personally involved. For a chance to win, ask people to share their most embarrassing holiday story, a prized holiday recipe or their favorite holiday photo from their childhood. As for the prize, a holiday shopping spree or all-inclusive holiday vacation is sure to build interest.

3. Boost sales with daily holiday promotions.

At this time of year, you can earn a lot of extra revenue through add-on sales. Even if customers have already purchased their big holiday gifts, they will be looking for additional gifts and stocking stuffers right up until Christmas Eve. Also, gift buying procrastinators like me will appreciate last-minute promotions. Offer a daily deal exclusive to social media so people have a reason to visit your social media pages often. Provide a discount coupon, a special sale on items you are trying to move or a daily “Buy this item and get this item free!” promotion. This strategy helps you drive sales throughout the entire holiday season.

4. Feature customer stories to create a more personal connection.

Customers love to see real life stories from other people just like them. This type of content is unique and engaging, and it shows that you are a business with a strong focus on personal interaction. Keep stories short and simple, and include a picture of the customer if you have their permission. Stories such as “the holiday gift that meant the most to me,” “my biggest holiday decorating mishap” or “my funniest holiday memory” are interesting and will gain lots of interaction on social media. Provide an incentive for customers to share their stories, such as a personalized holiday coupon or a free mystery gift.

5. Show customers how to create homemade holiday gifts using items from your store.

This is one great way to push more sales and get customers involved. Everyone likes to get creative, and handmade gifts are often the ones recipients cherish the most. Provide detailed instructions on how to bake a special holiday treat, make your own holiday cards, create a unique toy or craft a personalized ornament. Give people an idea of approximately how long it takes to make the item and list everything they will need to complete the project, using things from your store.

Source

Read More

How to Motivate Your Content Marketing Team.

Smart marketers know that content marketing metrics can be used to optimize future strategy. But, these same metrics can also be used to reward and incentivize individual contributors. Incentivizing a content marketing team — similar to how many sales teams function — can keep the team accountable and boost results. 

Your content marketing team, right down to individual writers, can be held responsible for achieving not only a certain level of content output, but also a certain level of content performance.

At Curata, I’ve created a bonus plan based and put my team on it:

Image credit: Curata

The individual’s content marketing performance: 50 percent

Of this portion, 75 percent is for owned media (sites we control) and 25 percent is for earned media (media mentions or guest posts based on relationships)

Within each of these segments:

• 50 percent is based on engagement metrics such as session duration and social media chatter
• 25 percent is based on marketing pipeline impact (i.e. leads touched, leads generated)
• 25 percent is based on sales pipeline impact (i.e. opportunities touched, opportunities generated)

Overall performance of marketing:  25 percent 
Company’s financial performance:  25 percent

You might tailor this model based on your own needs and situation. Perhaps your team must contribute a certain number of pieces per week (a quota based on frequency) to be eligible for a bonus or they’re expected to grow the readership by a certain amount each month (a quota based on readership). 

When properly implemented, a content marketing quota can have the following positive impacts:

Better topic selection

When writers know they’re being held accountable for results, they’re more likely to brainstorm relevant topics and refine their approach to suit readers’ needs, which often translates to better engagement and results. These marketers will use tools such as BuzzSumo to select topics that are timely and keyword-driven.

Better calls to action

Calls to action—whether leading the reader to download an e-book, or buy a product—are a key component of content marketing; and when writers know they’ll be rewarded for positive results, they’ll often work harder and create call-to-actions that convert to fulfill their Marketing and Sales Impact portions of their quota. 

Closer collaboration with social media and sales

In some companies, sales, marketing and social media exist in separate silos. When sales impact and social media metrics are components of individual performance, it helps incentivize marketers to work with the sales and social media teams so that everyone gets on the same page in terms of goals and messaging. 

Personal empowerment and gratification

Performance bonuses encourage writers to take ownership of their work. They also find it gratifying when they see that their efforts are helping grow revenue. Plus, earning some extra cash never hurts.

Before implementing quotas, think carefully about what benchmarks to use. If you set the bar too high and the numbers are unattainable, it could actually de-motivate people and lower morale. Set it too low and they may not take it seriously or achieve their full potential. Be open to honing these standards over time, and you’ll be on your way to optimizing your content marketing.

Source

Read More