In order to benefit the most from social selling as a sales department, a planned approach is required. A promising social selling strategy takes into account the following 7 factors in particular:
Create framework conditions: As a company, you must create framework conditions so that your sales staff can and want to use their personal social media profile to achieve the employer's goals. This includes, for example, the provision of social media guidelines, suitable training, tools or, if necessary, the assumption of costs for premium accounts for optimal use of the respective networks.
Integration into the sales strategy: The social selling activities are to be integrated as part of your sales strategy. Among other things, it is important to define the role and goals of these activities in the sales funnel. A plan for integrating these activities into day-to-day sales operations is also helpful.
Empower sales staff: actively support your sales staff in their social selling activities. This includes, for example, creating a professional profile, offering regular training courses, as well as a continuous exchange of experiences with community management and content marketing experts.
Interlinking with marketing: It is advisable to closely link social selling activities with marketing planning. This applies in particular to communication activities as well as content marketing, in which, among other things, content, formats or a distribution plan are defined.
Effective target group approach: A good understanding of the relevant group of decision-makers (buying center) is essential in order to develop suitable content that matches the information needs of the various contact persons. Develop a concept for how you can identify members in buying centers via social networks and address them in the best possible way. The establishment of contact can be supported and made more effective by using suitable tools
Determine the rules of the game: Provide a clear process for how to deal with contacts made in social networks from a company perspective. Clarify questions like: When is a contact created as a lead in the CRM system? When and how can these contacts be addressed by the company?
Success measurement: Define meaningful and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) for your social selling activities. Examples include: content views, content shares, content likes or the engagement rate, which can result from conversation requests or requests for further information.
Using social networks in connection with content marketing is becoming more and more important for sales managers and will be part of the tools of the trade in the future.
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