Rarely does a day go by that I don’t hear small business owners referencing “Social Selling”.  BUT how often are they simply nodding their head without really knowing what social selling means?

 

I like the definition of social selling offered by Koka Sexton at Social Media Marketing World:

SOCIAL SELLING = Leveraging your professional brand to fill your pipeline with the RIGHT people, insights, & relationships

 

Social Selling bridges the gap between sales & marketing allowing you to both identify AND engage your ideal prospects & customers.

Bottom line, Social Selling allows you to drive revenue through your social media efforts!

You can use social selling to touch each point in your customer’s journey to do business with you.

Let’s take a look at how Social Selling impacts the 5 Key Profit Maximizers in your business. As a reminder, they are:

1. # of Leads
2. Conversion Rate
3. Average Dollar Sale
4. # of Tractions
5. Profit Margin

 

Here are some facts via market research and where they make their impact:

• Over 50% of people now search Facebook for products or businesses they need to solve their problems

  • Having your business visible on social platforms clearly increases the number of leads for your sales process

 

• 84% of C-Level and Vice President Level buyers include social media in their B2B purchase decisions

  • With a greater presence and visibility buyers will answer more of their questions about your product or service which will improve your conversion rate

 

• According to the firm IDC, social buyers spend 84% MORE per purchase

  • By creating more of the “know, like, trust” factor as a result of your social presence buyers are more likely to take advantage of the “upsells” you offer them during the sales process increasing your Average Dollar Sale

 

• Social buyers make 61% more purchases compared to those not using social media in their decision making

  • Once buyers develop a relationship with you and follow you on social media platforms they are far more open to cross sell offers kind of like Amazon does with their “people who bought this also bought” strategy. This increases the # of Transactions per customer.

 

So as you can see, with the exception of profit margin (which only you control), social selling directly impacts your ability to maximize profits within your business.

It also allows you the ability to differentiate yourself & your business by offering new or unique insights about your product or service.

The goal is to improve your visibility AND visibility creates opportunity!

If you’re looking to learn more about marketing your business online, one of my mentors, Tim Erway offers a free master class on how you can easily get started while investing ONLY 10 minutes and $10 each day. Click here to register for his next session!

Please comment if you have a question or to share your successes at becoming more visible on social media. I look forward to hearing from you!

Until next time, Here’s To Your $uccess!