Social Business in Sales and Marketing

…and adding the new

22 November 2012

Leigh HopwoodB2B Technology Marketing Consultant

Website www.reddmarketing.co.ukEmail [email protected]

Call 07746 249132Skype leighhopwood

LinkedIn /leighhopwood or /reddmarketingTwitter @leighhopwood or @reddmarketing

Social Business

• Organisations that have adopted the social business model utilise social media tools and social networking behavioural standards across functional areas for communicating and engaging with external audiences, including customers, prospective customers, prospective employees, suppliers, and partners.

• Combining social networking etiquette (being helpful, transparent and authentic) with business engagement on LinkedIn (for one-to-one interaction), Twitter (for immediacy) and Facebook (for content sharing) more fully involves employees in the organization and increases customer intimacy and trust.

Buying Cycle

The Process• Identified business

challenge• Research possible

solutions• Define technology

requirement• Search for suppliers;

Google, recommendations• Validate potential suppliers• Negotiate and purchase• Deliver, service and upsell

Typically• Information is power!• Long sales cycles• Complex decision making

unit• Less visibility of pricing• Multiple influencers• Relationships are key• Strong brand positioning

and awareness is highly influential

• Prove you can do it!

Why?

93% of marketers use social media for business

Why?• 84% of B2B tech buyers use social networks to keep up with trends and stay

connected• 41% of B2B tech buyers use social media at some point in the buying process• Web searches and LinkedIn are equally as useful for finding potential B2B

suppliers; Twitter is the most useful channel in final supplier selection• Of B2B tech buyers:

– 90% participate in Video– 80% participate in Blogs– 80% participate in Wikis– 69% participate in Social Networks– 53% participate in Podcasts

• 23% of tech buyers are active content contributors on social media• 21% of B2B companies can consistently demonstrate ROI from social media

investmentSources: IDC,KnowledgeStorm, Buyersphere Report 2012, IDG Knowledge Hub

How?

Influence through Social Media

Influence through Social Media

Influence through Social Media

Influence through Social Media

Influence through Social Media

Focus Your Time

What is your Social Business Strategy?

• Who are you engaging with? Employees, prospects, customers? Define these segments

• Are they on LinkedIn? Are they using other platforms? Twitter? Facebook? Do you need your own platform?

• What do they want to know about you and your business?

• What is your tone of voice? • Do all channels have a consistent message?• How often are you active?• What do you expect to gain?

#1 - LinkedIn

Be there and be active!

Personal Profile• Full profile• Grow connections• Recommendations• Status updateshttp://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevepipe

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/johndunnet

Your Personal Profile

• Summary– Let your personality shine– What are you offering others?– What makes you so credible?– Use keywords– Include Specialities

• Experience – don’t create a CV• Projects – key client projects• Skills & Expertise – endorsement • Education – it adds to your credibility• Websites – change ‘Company Website’!• Interests – could be your USP!• Groups – join relevant groups• Add applications – SlideShark, WordPress

Settings and Personalisation

• Consider when to broadcast mass changes• Apply privacy settings• Set email notifications• Manage settings of third party applications/plugins• Upgrade your account

– To use inmails– Searching for contacts – more filters and display more

contacts– Saving profiles in an organised file structure

Be there and be active!

Personal Profile• Show credibility• Grow network• Get recommendations• Share knowledgehttp://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevepipe

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/johndunnet

Company Profile• Level the playing field!• Employees connected• Get recommendations• Grow followers• Status updates; link to

website• Promote URL through

other channelshttp://www.linkedin.com/company/philips

http://www.linkedin.com/company/linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/company/rackspace-hosting

Your Business Profile

• Branding – exploit the opportunity!• Company update – start using it; press releases, white

papers, hiring, tweets• Overview – use keywords and consistent message • Adverts – add banner ads/offers• Products and services – add them and ask for

recommendations• Video – add YouTube URLs• Promotions – add offers/downloads• Disclaimer – seek legal advice• Careers – use it if you are recruiting• Analytics – see how effective your pages are

Grow your network and engage

Join groups• Listen• Ask questions• Answer questions• Engage – don’t sell!

Find people• Named accounts/

contacts• Send direct messages• Engage – don’t sell!• Save contact history in

CRM

Engage…

#2 - Content

#3 - Twitter

#4 - Measure

How to measure…

• Social drives traffic to website• Track where the traffic comes from (short URLs)• Website generates the lead• Analytics will track conversions• Lead generated in CRM• Contact history created

Use metrics to focus your time

• Are your contacts responding?• Which message creates the greatest response?• Does one customer type respond more?• What type or format of content generates most

responses?• Which of your connections has the greatest

influence?• What generates the most qualified leads?• …

Where should you be spending your time?

Winning formula

Profitable Relationships

Quality Network

Quality Content

ConsistencyPersonality

Measure and Tweak

ExamplesTechnology Company Social Media Result

Lenovo (hardware) Community website 20% reduction in call centre activity

Moonfruit (web hosting) Social media mix 20% increase in sales

Genius.com (marketing automation provider)

Social media mix 24% of its social media leads convert to sales opportunities

Archer Technologies (provider of risk and compliance solutions)

1) Archer Community2) Archer Exchange

(app store)

1) 20 new members, 4,000 unique visits and 400+ downloads every week

2) 17,000 unique visits, 90,000 page views and 1,200 downloadsEnhanced product development from user feedback directly helped form 3 new products

InfusionSoft (CRM) Social media mix Need for less customer service agents, whilst increasing customer satisfaction by 10%

Avanade (enterprise solutions)

Twitter and YouTube 9,294 video viewshttp://www.youtube.com/user/AvanadeUK

Idea Paint (paint to businesses)

Facebook and Flickr Social media is the largest source of leads

RS Components (electronic components)

Community website 45,000 community members, 60,000 downloads of its PCB tool http://www.freshnetworks.com/clients/rs-components

infoMENTUM (information management)

LinkedIn 75% of leads generated through LinkedIn

Examples

• How social media helped Cisco shave $100,000+ off a product launch http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/cisco-social-media-product-launch/

• How Kinaxis achieved 270% increase in website traffic, 3.2 increase in conversions and 600% increase in registration of community members http://socialmediab2b.com/2010/06/b2b-case-study-online-community/

• How GE MarkNet gained 3,200 members in a community and saved £250,000 in a single project http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/02/b2b-social-media-example-ge-marknet/

• How Hinda Incentives went from start up to winning awards, industry recognition and authority, improved search visibility, leads, sales and boosted site traffic considerably in 2 years; LinkedIn is the second source of web traffic behind organic search http://www.businessesgrow.com/tag/hinda-incentives/

• How Shipserve saw an ROI in 3 months after a $30k investment in content distributd through social media channels (LinkedIn and Twitter) http://www.businessesgrow.com/2010/06/20/a-fascinating-hardcore-b2b-social-media-success/

• How IBM turned sales consultants into industry thought leaders with reported tangible increase to sales pipeline http://www.text100-uk.com/2012/07/b2b-social-media-case-study-turning-ibms-sales-consultants-into-industry-thought-leaders/

A&Q