Social media and relationship development for sales

15 March 2011

Peter AbrahamDirectorEconsultancypeter.abraham @ econsultancy.omLinkedin & Twitter peterjabraham

Social media and relationship development for sales (and marketing)

It’s as much about Sales as Marketing…

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Context

Marketing and Sales are being drawn together through necessity – lack of staff, sales cycles, engagement, lead nurturing, flatter structures, etc

Content Marketing is a growing trend, seen as a way to talk ‘with’ customers not ‘at’ them.

Familiarity - Internal staff are probably already using many social media apps and networks

Social Brand - Personal ‘brand’ and Company ‘brand’ think ‘inside and outside’.

Trust - People like people that are transparent and helpful

Centres of Excellence a growing theme in digital

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Marketing mix is getting broader –and this doesn’t include all those social media possibilities

Source: BCG analysis The Boston Consulting Group

How do you maximise?

How do you maximise?

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There’s a new kid in town…Content Marketing – your content!

Source: Junta42 - http://blog.junta42.com/ and Velocity and Partners - http://www.velocitypartners.co.uk/

Some ideas/solutions for Content Marketing…White PapereBookCase studyAudio bookeNwesletterBlogPodcastVideo blogMobile appGameWidgetFacebook appScreencastWikiWebinar /WebcastNews releaseCustomer focused community

Where do you store this

stuff?

Where do you store this

stuff?

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Me the company brand

Common approach Common approach

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Me as a personal brand

Build your credibility, reliability,

LTV What about

internally?

Build your credibility, reliability,

LTV What about

internally?

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Personal Branding: Rationale

• Building and maintaining a personal brand is becoming a critical activity for all professionals – it’s good for you, but it can also ad value to an organisation, think LTV

• Managing leads and client relationships increasingly involves understanding how digital networks and media work and how to use them effectively.

• It is essential to make sure that the image and information you display online is going to encourage rather than discourage a potential or existing client

• Econsultancy personality is its people. Applies to both Sales and Marketing staff, internally and externally.

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Source: Taken from an article by David Edelman and Brian Salsberg Source: Marketing & Sales Practice Nov 2010https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Beyond_paid_media_Marketings_new_vocabulary_2697

Earned.How do you

best leverage and manage?

Earned.How do you

best leverage and manage?

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Source: Taken from an article by David Edelman and Brian Salsberg Source: Marketing & Sales Practice Nov 2010https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Beyond_paid_media_Marketings_new_vocabulary_2697

“Emarketing strategies for the complex sale” Ardath Albee

1. Select a problem-to-solution scenario for a specific persona 2. Determine what that persona needs to know to buy 3. Assign what prospects need to know during various buying stages 4. Map content to persona needs for each stage

Make content available

internally for sales?

Make content available

internally for sales?

Buying process past and present

StatusQuo

Choice through channels

Priorityshift

Research OptionsStepbacks

Validation

Marketing (Content) Saleswhat channel?

Past Now

How do you make this easier for

everyone?

How do you make this easier for

everyone?

WHAT YOU KNOW AND CAN APPLY TO A NURTURE OR SALE

Inte

rnal

Ext

erna

lIn

tern

al

E

xter

nal

The TRUST equation (Maister)

T=Trustworthiness

C=Credibility R=Reliability I=Intimacy

S=Selfishness (Self Orientation)

T = C + R + I S

Something to promote and

develop internally?

Something to promote and

develop internally?

Evaluate each of the four elements and give yourself a rating of zero-to10

Evaluate each of the four elements and give yourself a rating of zero-to10

Source: Social Media for Sales in the professions – white paper – download from: http://bit.ly/fwbPLC

Start to consider using Sales and Marketing resource with social media

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Key themes - Social media as a change agent for sales (and marketing): These are likely to cause change and disruption in your business:

a. The decision making unit and sales cycle – lead nurturing to conversion b. Personal brands vs. Corporate brands c. Integration of Marketing and Selling through ‘content marketing’ d. ‘Atomisation’ and ‘attribution’ = content distribution and scoring

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Key themes - Social media requirements resulting from change: The resulting requirements of the changes caused by social media: a. Setting clear objectives (sales & marketing) b. Exclusivity vs. Givers gain (transparency) c. Layers of information (lead nurturing) d. Developing trust (content play)

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Two examples from Econsultancy

Answer some ‘Questions’ - related to reports and blog articles curated from LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora etc and distributed to staff daily to answer = drives more traffic.

“Answers is now 7th largest source of traffic to Econsultancy.com

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#RedFriday Headline statsRedFriday campaign to experiment with Social Selling…

Offered external prize pot of £10k and gave the choice of users either getting the discount by using a unique user code and buying yourself OR getting others to buy using your personal code.Used many different digital channels and internal staff networks and Groups to reach new and existing users – drives traffic and sales • 388 codes created - 166 codes were used• 209 individual purchases were made • Most were a single purchase, although 14 people made multiple sales.• Econsultancy staff were excluded from the onsite leaderboard, but internally we measured success and rewarded for it.

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Good usage of internal staff (642 page

views)81 users from FB and twitter

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Thousands of tweets for #RedFriday,

some instigated by internal staff. 

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Some highly influential, drove more traffic

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Blatant sales messages not good for

ReTweets!

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Blogs

We don’t always get it right

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Cen

tres

of

Exc

elle

nce

Cen

tres

of

Exc

elle

nce

Content MarketingContent Marketing

Personal ‘brand’ and Company ‘brand’

Personal ‘brand’ and Company ‘brand’

Marketing and SalesMarketing and Sales

Summary

TrustTrust

ManageManage

ManageManage

ManageManage

BuildBuild

BuildBuild

Thanks for your time

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Contact me or why not Email me your questions: peter.abraham @ econsultancy.com Econsultancy is a global independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and ecommerce. Our hub has 100,000+ members worldwide from clients, agencies and suppliers alike with over 90% member retention rate. We help our members build their internal capabilities via a combination of research reports and how-to guides, training and development, face-to-face conferences, forums and professional networking.

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