Social selling enhances success rates, and more than you might expect. A recent study indicated that 78.6% of those who used social media as part of their sales efforts outperformed those who didn't, and social media users were 23% more likely to exceed quotas by more than 10%. In short, when your sales team works social media, their results will be better.
Of course, like any other part of your marketing and sales plan, effective use of social media requires a solid, integrated strategy. One key aspect of that strategy is understanding how your medical device content marketing program can support andenhance your sales team’s social selling efforts.
Content Marketing Saves Your Sales Team Time
Most of the sales professionals who reported success with social selling said they didn’t spend a lot of time working social media. Having a solid bank of content on hand allows those representatives to offer useful, targeted information through social channels without investing a significant amount of time creating it anew when the conversation warrants sharing.
Content Creates Awareness
In each social network, your sales representatives will encounter prospects and colleagues with varying levels of awareness of your product and your brand. That means differing levels of interest, of trust in his representations and of basic knowledge about what you’re selling and why they might want to do business with you.
Obviously, no social media user can fill in all of those gaps during every conversation—and it would rapidly drive away followers if he did. Offering content that provides information at varying levels means answering everyone’s questions without alienating those further along the pipeline.
Content Can Speak Everybody’s Language
Just as different prospects have different levels of familiarity with your company, they have different preferences with regard to media, depth and other characteristics. One persona engaging with your company won't have interest in every piece you offer but with a well-developed store of content, the sales rep can deliver material that suits the preferences and knowledge levels of a wide range of prospects.
Sharing Content Builds Credibility
Relationship-building is the key to effective social media use, but it can be difficult to establish your credibility or engage in meaningful interactions in the 140 characters allowed by Twitter, or even via comments in a LinkedIn group or Facebook discussion.
Sharing relevant content allows your sales staff to back up their shorter comments and demonstrate that your company has deeper expertise in the area.
Content Marketing Reinforces Your Brand Message
One of the most beneficial aspects of social media is that it allows you to keep your brand in front of your prospects and to publicly interact in a way that supports your brand image. Integrating content that reinforces your brand identity strengthens that opportunity and shows your prospects that your message is consistent across channels and your brand is reliable.
In addition to enhancing the success of your team’s social selling efforts, reliance on content to keep those efforts moving effectively and efficiently will improve sales and marketing alignment. Smart sales professionals who see their close rates increasing and find themselves exceeding quotas will be eager to work with marketing to develop additional materials to support those efforts.
Better sales and marketing alignment can be achieved more and more easily these days with tools like HubSpot's All-in-One Marketing Software and Nimble's Social CRM solution. To develop a truly closed-loop solution use your marketing automation software to identify and nurture leads, then seamlessly pass them off into a social CRM system to facilitate engagement by sales.
Our team is ready to assist you in handling the entire lead life cycle from lead generation to close. If you're looking to build out your marketing efforts for the digital age, then we want to be a part of your team. Reach out to us today for an initial consultation.
Tags: SEO, Social Selling, Lead Generation, content marketing, sales and marketing
