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Adapting to The New Social Selling Environment
The social media revolution and the internet have proven to be huge game changers. They’ve changed how people purchase which changes how we sell.
There’s no shortage of advice and and information about how to adapt your selling approach. But hubspot.com points out that the selling landscape is constantly changing.
That means your techniques must be adaptable to the changing selling environment.
Here are three solid guidelines from Andrew Quinn to keep you on top of the game:
1. Do Your Research
Quinn points out that the internet has made it simple to do incredible research. When someone lands on your website and initiates contact, chances are they already feel like your product is a good fit.
This power of internet research isn’t just limited to customers. It’s also one of your greatest tools to understand what your customers actually need.
You can learn about your prospects via social media like LinkedIn and Facebook. Or if your prospect is another business, you can access their website and really see who they are.
2. Always Be Listening
Fancy closing techniques aren’t necessary when you clearly understand what your customer needs. This is vital. It’s not about positioning your product, it’s about what value you are bringing to the transaction.
What does the customer need? How can you help them? Sometimes you’ll have to be brave enough to recognize that you can’t help them.
3. Manage Your Reputation
Your reputation travels at the speed of light today thanks to social media. Your relationship with the customer continues long after the sale is consummated. Unhappy customers can share their experience with thousands at the click of a mouse. But so can happy ones.
Keeping your customers happy will keep them coming back and attract new prospects as well. Yes, it’s a lot of work to build a stellar reputation. That’s the nature of long term relationships.
Remember, you’re creating a community of customers, not just trying to close a transaction. Selling products isn’t enough anymore. Your success is directly linked to building trust and advocacy with your customers.
The internet has drastically changed how we do business.
To learn more about implementing the strategies, methodologies and technologies required today, check out Hub Mentality.
Getting Your Message To Your Customers
Great ads are rare. Great copywriting is even more so.
As a business owner you don’t want to believe it. After all, you’ve identified a market. You’ve done your homework. You’re filling a need.
And though your ads glow with benefits, your product isn’t selling.
How can that be?
It’s not always a matter of price, competition or even the offer that’s standing in your way. It may be something as simple as focus.
Michael Fortin points to three essential elements that distinguish great copy from background noise:
- One message
- One market
- One outcome
Your one message needs to be clear and should never confuse the customer. This means that your copy should make one offer and one offer only.
Multiple offers, going off on tangents and excessive information make it difficult for the customer to think clearly. Don’t tell irrelevant stories.
Instead, help your customer make one wise choice about how to spend their money.
To focus on reaching one market, accept that you cannot try to be all things to all people.
It dilutes your message and robs it of clarity. Too broad of appeal leaves a majority feeling that you’re indifferent to their unique needs.
Fortin advises segmenting your market and writing copy that caters to each segment.
Even if the product is the same, talk to each identifiable group separately.
Finally, the one outcome needs to be an ultimate call to action specified in your copy. Every other facet of your copy should lead to this one outcome.
Don’t let the customer get sidetracked by distractions. Prevent procrastination by focusing on why they came to you in the first place: to buy.
Fortin offers one final thought on bringing down the barriers that prevent your message from getting through to your customers–focus on the customer.
The individual reading your copy is more interested in their personal wants and desires.
Illustrating the perceived value of your product to your customer is more effective than bragging how good or innovative the product is.
Your customer’s perception is personal so tell them about the value you’re bringing to them.
Hub Mentality is an excellent resource to learn more about the difference between selling and persuading.
Setting Your Social Marketing Goals
There’s no doubt that social media marketing is impacting how business is done.
Interactivity with current and potential customers has never been easier.
Consider your choices: Facebook, blogging, Twitter, Linked In, on line forums, Squidoo, Youtube, RSS channels or podcasting. Each can be a valuable tool in growing your business.
But do you know how to use them? Or why?
A common mistake that small business owners make is getting caught up in the fun of connecting through social media without understanding what they wish to get out of it.
Ellie Mirman at hubspot.com has some excellent rules of thumb to consider before jumping on the social media marketing bandwagon:
Her first question: What is the top metric you’re trying influence?
Traffic: Ad supported websites use social media to drive a larger audience to visit their website.
Leads: Social media drives people to your website to download a free offer and to give you contact information.
Reach: Increasing your social media followers & fans increases your reach which translates into more traffic or more leads.
Buzz: More awareness of your company or product over a wider audience means you’ll want to measure mentions of your brand in social media over time.
Customer Happiness (Customer Support): Social media allows you to see what your customers are saying (good or bad) about you. It’s also a fine tool for responding to customers when they’re having problems with your product.
Once you’ve determined the top metric you wish to influence, Mirman says it’s time to set your social media goal numbers.
She recommends setting your social media goals on your high level business goals.
Finally, track your progress.
For traffic you’ll need Google Analytics. For leads Hubspot is an excellent resource. For reach try Facebook Insights, or Twitter Counter.
For buzz or mentions try PostRank. And for Customer Happiness you’ll need good CRM software.
Once you’ve put together your plan and set your goals, go for it! Keep track of results and you’ll soon see which social media marketing best fits your company.
Above all, remember that effective online marketing is based on the quality of your relationships, not just the quantity of connections.
Use Hub Mentality to give your customers what they want, how they want it.
Building a Database to Build Your Small Business
In the Information Age, information isn’t just power. It’s life. Especially for small businesses.
Now that the nature of marketing has shifted the power to buyers over sellers, new marketing strategies are required.
Something that hasn’t changed is that every business needs to make sales and needs people to sell to.
A key strategy today is a database of customers to whom you can market. But not all databases are created equal. Building a proper database takes time.
Which leads some to ask: “Why not just purchase a huge list of names and email addresses and start from there?”
Here are four solid reasons from aweber.com explaining why that’s a risky move:
- The addresses on those lists get sold to all kinds of marketers. So they get all kinds of mail. So, they lodge all kinds of spam complaints. If ISPs like Gmail and Hotmail notice, they might put you on a blacklist, blocking your emails from all their users in the future.
- Because of the way these lists are compiled, many of the addresses you receive will be misspelled, abandoned or non-existent. When a big chunk of your emails goes to such addresses, ISPs, again, might notice. Again, they might block all future emails from you. List merchants know this. It’s such a sure thing, they even offer a refund of credit for those addresses up-front.
- And if you’re sending through an email service provider and you get blocked, other messages they send from the same IP address could also be blocked. So you’ll actually find that no reputable ESP will let you import a purchased list anyway.
- Unprepared recipients aren’t likely to think, “Oh gosh, I was just hoping for yet another offer from a company I don’t know! Let me click over to their site and buy something!”
So what’s the better way?
One of the most powerful tools a small business can wield in the Information Age is a permission-based database of customer information.
This is the seed crop that will provide your company with long term, lifetime customers if you protect it and use it wisely.
This means that you must capture customer information in the right way and never ever abuse the trust of those customers.
When encouraging people to sign up for free content on your website, they must understand exactly what they’re signing up to receive.
How often will you contact them? Can they opt out at any time? They must know these answers before they click.
Confirmed opt in is the preferred way to gain your customer’s permission to share high quality content with them. This method ensures that the customer really wants to receive your information.
Once you have that vital customer information, you must treat it as a sacred trust and never share it for short term profit. Those customers are now part of your community and must never be taken for granted.
Hub Mentality requires a more genuine, long term approach. By persuasively pulling customers into your community, you first gain their permission and then their trust.
But above all, you gain lifetime customers. Isn’t that what we were after all along?
Are You Marketing Stuff or Marketing Solutions?
As a small business owner, it’s time someone told you the painful truth. Whatever your product or service may be, that’s not what your customers are seeking.
What they’re looking for could be better described as solutions. They’re looking for peace of mind; to be entertained; for their lives to be made easier. In short, they have problems to be solved.
This spells opportunity for the savvy business owner who chooses to market their products or services as a way of meeting their customer’s needs.
The first priority is to discover what your customers want, then decide how your products can deliver the goods.
To get the right answers, you’ll need to ask two very important questions:
What do I have?
What do they need?
Start by listing your assets, whether it be better business hours, well-informed sales personnel, or an overstock of a particular item. Figure out what you have to offer.
Next, you’ll need to consider the basic human needs and wants of your customers.
Basic needs include security, companionship, greater freedom, etc..
Wants, on the other hand, could include looking better, impressing their friends, or getting their kids to eat healthier.
The final step is to match them up.
For instance, REI doesn’t just want to sell you a GPS unit. Instead they “keep you safely on the beaten path” and help you navigate with confidence.
The Container Store isn’t looking to sell you containers, they’re helping you find happiness through being better organized.
See the difference?
Solutions are much more persuasive than stuff. Now you just need to match the assets of your businesses with the wants and needs of your customers.
Approach your small business marketing with a focus on providing your customers with solutions rather than stuff and your Hub Community will grow.
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