What Social Selling is actually about!?
This might be the first question arose in your mind. As the term ‘selling’ indicates, it is about selling your products or services to your customers.
But, wait! It is not same as the traditional sales practices. Not at all. Look at the term ‘social’ before ‘selling’. Combined, the name refers to the process of selling your products or service through the social media platforms.
So, you can get rid of cold calling your customers, playing tricks and any other irksome old-school trick.
Social Selling
Social selling is the art of using social media networks to find prospects, generate leads, engage with them and generate sales.
Now you realize what I mean by social selling. And yes, you already have a facebook business page, a twitter handle or some other social profiles for your business. This means, you are into social selling unknowingly.
Then, have you ever seen the difference social media has brought to your business?
By saying no, you are accepting that you are not using it properly.
Just because your fellow entrepreneurs have a social media profile, you too create one for yours. This actually doesn’t work. You should look deeper – why do your competitors enter the social world? Because, they know the value of social selling.
You too should know what this means for a business today. So, here you go…
Importance of Social Selling
To realize the importance of social selling, you must know how well the world is connected with social media.
The total internet users in the world are around 3.5 billion. Among them, around 2.5 billion users are on social media. This is around 34% of the global population. If you consider a developed nation like the US, it is around 78%. And the figures go high.
Now, you can’t ignore it!
Already, 78% of the marketers who use social media are outselling the ones who are not using the social platforms. So gear up your practices on social media to scale your business.
Still unconvinced!?
Come, I’ll tell you three reasons for which you should try Social Selling.
Reason 1: You can make Relationships Stronger
How do you usually sell your products when there were social media?
– By Cold Calling.
Admit the fact that 90% of the people whom you call don’t respond to your calls. When they don’t listen to you, how can you sell your products?
On social media, you need not pitch at anyone about your products or services. You can make your targets come by themselves to you, if you showcase yourself as a solution to their problems. They will listen to you if they get value in your content. They will make a purchase if they are impressed with your solution.
Thus, you can make your relationship stronger.
Here are some statistics of the benefits of using social selling for your business.
In a report by CSO Insights, 38.8% of the marketers tell that social selling helps them in reducing the time needed for account/contact research. And 33.2% of the marketers see an increment in the leads generated.
You too can be one among the peers who generate profits with social selling.
Reason 2: Most of Your Customers are already into Social Media
This is the era of ecommerce. Actually, ecommerce has the stake of 7.5% in the total retail sales. But if you see the growth rate, it is 14.7% y/y whereas, the total retail sales are grown by just 1.3% (statistics are as per Q4 ‘15 results of the US retail market).
This clearly indicates that your customers are moving onto online purchases. And 75% of the buyers get the contact information of a business through social media only. This indicates that almost all your e-customers come through social media only. In contrast to the traditional ways, your customers come to you willingly.
Reason 3: Social Media Influences customers’ Purchase Decisions
Credibility is an important factor for any business. As I said earlier, no one turns their ears to your words over a phone. But on social media, people listen to you.
The purchasing decision of a customer is influenced by social media. From a survey conducted by PWC (pricewaterhousecooper), 45% of the customers say that the reviews and comments on social media influence their purchasing decisions. 44% of the customers make a purchase by the offers promoted on social media platforms.
With all this said, you can understand the power of social media in influencing the purchase decisions of your customers. While there are many social media tools out there which you can use to enhance your social selling.
Best Social Selling Tool- Socioboard
Socioboard is one of the best social media management tools, using which you can easily manage multiple accounts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, (Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin, Tumblr, etc ). It has features like smart scheduling, content studio, analytic reporting, which you can utilize to boost your social media marketing.
Wrapping Words
Still unconvinced to start including social selling in your sales funnel! If I’m not mistaken, you have already made plans to take your business to social media and drive sales. Don’t stop at planning. Start implementing immediately to get the best out of social marketing.