Marketing Automation and Social Selling

Social Selling is no longer a new buzzword, instead of introducing a completely new idea to people when talking about it we are simply discussing another technique for hitting targets. Marketing Automation and Social Selling are both far more powerful when combined with one another. With Marketing Automation now affordable for most SMEs it’s the perfect time to illustrate how the two go together.

Fully Leverage Your COntent

When engaged in Social Selling you should be producing content to cement yourself as a source of industry knowledge. Whilst having this record of your expertise sit on your blog and LinkedIn profile is good actively seeking to spread it to contacts who will find it useful is better. Many pieces of content cover multiple topics and are relevant to different people for different reasons. Trying to direct contacts to all of your writings that they may find interesting manually would be a mammoth task. Utilising the powers of Marketing Automation and Social Selling you can determine what kind of content your contact finds most engaging and offer them more of that style of content in a timely manner.

Take Full Advantage Of Scheduling Options

Ensuring a consistent Social Media presence is vital to Social Selling. To position yourself as the font of all knowledge in your field you must routinely share great content. Some days that’s easy, you might find 5 great articles before lunch just by browsing your own Twitter feed. But this can’t be relied upon. Busy days happen, meetings happen, traffic happens! Scheduling your base Social Media posts days, weeks, even months in advance takes the pressure off you in your day-to-day routine and allows you to focus on crafting great posts ‘in the moment.’ Around events and product launches the ability to schedule posts across multiple platforms is invaluable. Having a Social Media plan before time that is mostly implemented before time minimises hassle during stressful periods and frees up your Marketing Team to react to things as they happen on the day.

Communicate On A Contact’s Terms

In 2016 many consumers expect to be able to contact a brand not only via phone and email but through any Social Media they have a presence on. Traditional wisdom says that there’s nothing more personal than a phone call. If a contact’s communication with you and your brand has been exclusively through Twitter or Facebook then why pick up the phone before using these channels?

A core goal of Social Selling is to ensure there are no more cold-calls, by the time you’re speaking to a contact they should be a warm lead. They should know who you are, why you’re calling and what you can do for them! Marketing Automation can help to ensure all contact is linked together and the ability to report end-to-end ROI allows you to see the value of every interaction. A simple Tweet or thank you message on Facebook may be the difference between turning a cold-call into a warm-call. Prove the value of Social Selling with Marketing Automation and gather insights into behaviour and trends as you do so.

Contact Behaviour is Visible

Key to the success of Marketing Automation is the idea of Personalisation. Without learning from buyer behaviour and adapting to it Marketing Automation is just a slightly better version of Email Marketing. When it comes to Social Selling a similar level of Personalisation is required. Whilst the thought leadership efforts are broadcast to the world in the same way when it comes time to connect with people you have to do so on a human level.

With the power of Marketing Automation you can track all of the interaction a contact has with you and your brand. Utilising this information you should tailor and target your communications with the contact.

Are they visiting certain pages over and over again?
Do they watch videos to the end but leave written articles half way through?
Have they visited your pricing page recently?
Do they frequently click-through but fail to convert at the last hurdle?
Is one Social Media their main channel for communicating with your brand?

Speed the Sales Process By Aligning Marketing & Sales

Terms like ‘Social Selling’ and ‘Marketing Automation’ often divide the Marketing and Sales departments. Any mention of the word ‘Marketing’ and Sales are no longer listening, and vice versa. By encouraging everyone to be a Social Seller you have everyone invested in the Sales process. Even if Marketing aren’t directly engaged in Social Selling they should be creating content for your Sales department.

Bringing in a Marketing Automation platform with an inbuilt CRM means that everyone has all the necessary information you have gathered on a contact at their fingertips all of the time. End-to-end analytics help do away with squabbles over lead quality, sales-team efficiency and overall conversion volume.