Think about the last time a friend recommended something to you and
bought it. Was it a restaurant? A book? A clothing store?
What about in
business? When a fellow business owner recommends something, chances are,
you’ll listen more closely, right?
Marketers
always agree on one thing: people buy from the people they trust. Relationship
building is one of the key steps in any sales process, because selling is that
much easier once a relationship has been established. This entire process is
known as ‘social selling’.
The question
is: are businesses taking advantage of this effective method of selling?
Here’s six
statistics you need to know about social selling (and some suggestions of how
you can harness its power):
1. Sales
people use
on average six tools to aid them in finding prospects and making sales.
How many do you or your sales reps use right now? We suggest a good diverse combination
of tools in line with a good social selling strategy. Three of these tools, we
believe, should be: email, phone and social media.
If you need a
helping hand with using these tools to generate sales, E-Ideas offers email
sales & follow up automation, appointment setting or market research
through cold calling, and social media consulting and management.
2. 65% of
salespeople who use social selling make their
quota or achieve their sales goals, compared to 47% of reps who do not. *Note to self:
tell all my sales staff to start working to a social selling strategy ASAP*
3. Using
social selling tools can increase
win rates and deal size by 5% and 35%, respectively. Just think: what would a
35% increase in the next order mean for your business? What about in the next
10 orders? Time to start creating your social selling strategy!
Get in touch
with us if you’d like to know more about automation programs and software we
offer for otherwise manual tasks such as email follow up and social media
posting.
4. 35-50%
of sales go to the vendor that responds first. If you have a website with a
contact form, or a way to send an enquiry, ensure you have an automated
response set up for those who enquire and want a response right away. Even an
automated message contributes to this statistic, as enquirers want to feel that
they are in good, trusting hands so set up your systems to reflect your
trustworthiness. The automated message can be as simple as “We’ve received
your message and will respond to it soon. In the meantime, do take a look at
this current project/sale/offer of ours: INSERT LINK”.
5.Four
in 10 reps
have recently closed two to five deals directly thanks to social media. Whether
your business is active on social media or not, take the time to research which
network holds more of your target market, create a strategy for targeting new
prospects, and focus on using that network every single day.
If you simply
don’t have the time to work out your target market, strategy or let alone
actually be active on social media every day, get in touch with us to outsource
it to our social media team.
6. Half of revenue is influenced by social sellingin 14 common industries, including computer software, healthcare, and
marketing and advertising. We would argue that social selling influences a lot
more than half of revenue, but in any case, we can all agree that it’s a
powerful sales strategy.
If you’re not
sure how to create a social selling strategy for your business, let the E-Ideas
team consult and guide you through the process, and help you outsource as much
of the work as possible so you can forget about the prospecting, relax and
focus on fulfilling orders.
