We live in a wired world
Everywhere you look you see people tapping away at iPhones, Blackberries, iPads and a plethora of other communication devices.
Services like Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter seem to be all the rage and attract more users than the entire populations of some countries.
And while a lot of these services sprang up purely as social connection methods, some are very business focused and incredibly useful marketing and sales tools if used correctly.
So let’s look at how you can use these tools in a sales and marketing capacity.
First a couple of definitions...
Simplistically speaking, traditional marketing is about getting your message out to prospective clients and educating them about your services (with the hope that they’ll come to you). Selling is based on actively targeting prospects and converting them into clients.
And in the old days, these tended to be separate functions and indeed entire departments. Marketers marketed and salespeople sold.
But not any longer.
Your customer has changed and as a result, the lines between marketing and sales have blurred.
Buyers now can be far more proactive when it comes to looking for solutions. They not only use major search engines to find companies, but look at social media sites to find out about the people involved, their reputations in the market etc.
Based on the principal of degrees of separation, buyers use their social networks to find connections or get referrals that could offer solutions.
Here’s an example...
You’re looking for a product or service. You’ve found some candidates. What’s one of the best ways of deciding who to choose? Well one obvious way is recommendation and referral.
So you turn to your favourite social network, put in the person or company’s name and see what’s written about them.
You find common friends who know or have had work done by the company. You ask them their opinion.
And all without leaving your desk!
Powerful stuff – with powerful implications whether you’re a buyer or seller.
So as a marketer or sales person, what do you need to do to make sure you’re found?
First of all, make sure you have a business social media presence. I’d recommend www.linkedin.com as your first port of call.
Designed for business use, Linkedin primarily allows you to do two things. Find people and equally importantly, be found.
As a seller, you can find contacts in companies you wish to target. You can then contact them directly, or go through a “shared connection” – essentially, a referral. The recipient of your attention can then look you up and decide if they want to connect.
And people looking for a product or service can search using keywords (exactly how they’d do it on Google) and find you (if you have your profile set up correctly).
So what are the critical steps you must take?
Obviously, if you don’t already have an account, signup for one at www.linkedin.com.
Then create your profile in as much detail as possible. And yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. At Revealed Resources, we offer a linkedin profile and marketing service, where we’ll create your profile so it attracts quality prospects into your network.
Then actively build up your Rolodex of connections. Remember, social media is all about who knows whom which means there's an enormous power to connections. Connections can lead to recommendations and referrals, multiplying your effectiveness as a sales person. Therefore, in the long haul, the stronger your network, the greater your advantage over your competitors.
To get a sense of this consider recent research from IBM that values each additional relationship in your Rolodex as worth $948 (i.e. 100 relationships are worth $94,800 to you).
That really starts to quantify why building your network is a big strategic imperative. It may not be urgent on a day-to-day basis, but it is very important.
With this in mind, you should have a networking plan. Who do you want to target and who do you need to know to build that powerful contact list and what you are going to do to get to know those people?
Rashid.
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