I recall reading articles back in 2015 about how there was no ROI for Social Selling. Here at Digital Leadership Associates (DLA) www.social-experts.net we proved back then there was an ROI and subsequently keep publishing how our clients get massive returns using social.I make no apology for stating the obvious, but if you are not social selling you are leaving money on the table. It’s as simple as that. But let’s look at a simple business case.
Social Selling – A Business Case
Alex Low of DLA
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlow/ Recently posted on LinkedIn the following post.
Social and the return on opportunity. 10 Fee Earners use social to generate one business conversation per month. Average Fee – let us assume £15,000 or $15,000 or any currency you like.10 x 15 = 150,000150,000 x 12 = 1.8 million (of any currency you want) of opportunity.And this is what using social as a channel is all about.Start a business conversation “I saw that, read that, someone recommended I speak with you”You are obviously in control of your own execution, so subject to how good they are at doing that, will dictate the Return on Investment (ROI). Social has created the opportunity.Alex sells in the professional services market, one of the most regulated of areas. If they have embraced social selling, then any industry can.
Why Social Selling is Disrupting?
So many marketers come to us and say “marketing isn’t working anymore”.We are all so much more sophisticated in the way we buy, and are also so much more sophisticated in the way we are able to filter out the noise of
modern digital marketing.
In B2B Advertising Doesn’t Work Anymore
In the Enterprise B2B space, where I work, Advertising does not work anymore. Nobody looks at ads or remembers them and that’s the problem with paid media. You cannot do it for a short period, you have to keep doing it. And, of course, I go back to the fact that, does anybody actually look a ads? I’ll add to that the growth of ad-blockers by 30% year-on-year, Chrome and Mozilla are in an arms race to produce a web browser that blocks ads and Apple as a hardware vendor supports this too. The direction of travel is only one way.
GDPR Killed Email Marketing
Email marketing has now pretty much died since GDPR. There were thousands of tools that allowed you to send more and more emails. Of course, we know this and we just don’t open them, or, like me, you set up rules so that the emails go straight to junk. It’s interesting to see on LinkedIn conversations about who and what you can email. It doesn’t matter, I still have the right to remain forgotten, which I have invoked many, many times. Sending unsolicited emails does not work.
Cold Calling is Dead
Cold calling, certainly in Europe, died two years ago. The vision that the Finance Director of Oracle is sitting at her desk and waiting for your call so you can pitch for 20 minutes is total fallacy. In Europe, ask to speak to the CFO of a company and the reception / switchboard will just laugh at you.
Events and Seminars are Just Sales Pitches
Events and seminars have fallen through the floor, one company we spoke to, their output from events has fallen by 60% over the last 5 years. Most conferences and webinars are just sales pitches, so people don’t go. Which means there is less and less margin to create events, so speakers are paid less, so you get more sales pitches. It’s a self fulfilling philosophy.Corporate marketing is dead. Nobody listens to you telling everybody how great you are. it’s just the same as everybody else (so is your web site) and people just filter it out as noise.So where do you go? Go to where your customers are, of course. On social Media.Related:
Modern Selling is Trust Inside and Out But Our Social Media is Tactical
Correct, every company’s
social media is tactical. But it’s used right across the business, in sales, marketing, human resources, procurement, supply chain, finance etc. People are voting with their feet to use social. Why? Because, it’s easy to use, quick, low cost and actually more cost effective and more efficient.So Who’s Doing This?
Client that made 150% uplift in pipeline in 2 months. SAP that are public saying that have created €1 Billion in pipeline Salesperson that got a $1 Million deal at only our second session. Anybody that tells you social selling takes a long time, does not what they are talking about! A client that gets ten meetings a week with CEOs using Twitter Sale of two $300,000 all terrain vehicles and $1.4 Million of pipeline through one of our North American reseller clients. A client saving £45-60k in recruitment fees within two days of starting a project with usThere are also many clients under NDA who we cannot talk about. There is a clear movement here and it’s disrupting the way companies buy, sell and market. It can also be seen as a “quick win” as part of any digital transformation, proving out incremental (new) revenue and competitive advantage. Join the movement!
