Four ways social media can benefit the B2B revenue cycle: part 1 of 2
By Alexandra Reid
As online activity rapidly moves towards social media, it seems that B2B is beginning to catch up with its B2C cousins in getting onboard. According to a Forrester study, 77 per cent of B2B technology decision-makers are now active in social media. With the immense opportunities that social media provides businesses for brand building, customer relations and lead generation, social media platforms and tools are becoming increasingly unavoidable if B2B businesses are to maintain relevancy within their marketplaces. Although online marketing through more traditional digital methods like email, pay-per-click advertising and dissemination of press releases are all still part of the marketer’s toolbox, social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Slideshare are responsible for an increasing amount of the B2B interactions on the web.
However, the great majority of B2B businesses are still novices when it comes to social media, as another report shows that 73 per cent have less than two years of social media marketing experience. With limited experience comes fear of the unknown and avoidance of social media tools that might appear to be more complex. As reported by eMarketer, half of business-oriented marketers are avoiding blogging and Tweeting altogether. As prospects are more likely to get word-of-mouth recommendations by clicking through to third-party reviews or blog postings, avoidance of any widely used social media tool could cause you to miss out on leads, important comments about your products and services and the ability to establish thought leadership in your industry.
In this post, I’ll explain how social media benefits the B2B revenue cycle. On Thursday, I’ll discuss how social media is integral to facilitating B2B social validation, inbound marketing and advertising.
Social media attracts and nurtures leads throughout the entire revenue cycle
Starting before prospects are even recognized as leads and continuing on long after they become customers, social media plays an integral role in attracting and maintaining patrons of your brand. The modern practice of lead nurturing, which involves building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy, has added a highly personal and interactive layer to the earlier practice of reaching out to every prospect regardless of their level of interest or qualification, via mass marketing, advertising and branding. Today, B2B buyers are using social media to inform themselves about products and services much earlier in the buying process and to negotiate sales on their own terms and timelines. It is therefore vital that sellers incorporate social media engagement into their entire revenue cycle.
Seed nurturing
Before you even have the contact information of qualified prospects, they are educating themselves on your products and services by coming to your website and social media sites to read third-party reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations. Use this opportunity to build your relationship with these prospects. Offer them free and valuable content through corporate blogs and social media sites to draw them to your products and services.
It doesn’t matter that you’re enabling these prospects to remain anonymous by offering this content without requiring contact information in exchange. Providing valuable content will build up your readership and attract quality prospects that will initiate business deals when they become interested. Engage them by actively commenting and responding to comments related to your marketplace across multiple social media sites. For example, LinkedIn offers immense opportunities to engage in specific marketplaces through their Groups and Answers categories. The goal is to establish thought leadership and credibility and begin to develop relationships among prospects in the online community. If properly nurtured, these prospects can become inbound leads. Agencies such as inmedia can help you create the content required to establish thought leadership among online communities and attract qualified prospects to your brand.
Prospect nurturing
Social media can also be used for building and maintaining relationships with known prospects. It is important for maintaining your brand’s relevancy that you constantly monitor social media conversations and engage with prospects across multiple social media platforms. If you come across comments or conversations that express a negative sentiment towards your brand, you can use this as an opportunity to interject and offer solutions as a means of damage control. You can also gain a better understanding of the buying potential of prospects by comparing their attitude towards your brand as expressed through social media to other engagement activities such as email, downloads, web page visits and click-throughs. Agencies such as inmedia can help you with the social media activities required to nurture prospects.
Customer nurturing
The relationships of existing customers should also be nurtured through social media as they offer huge potential for consistent as well as new revenue. You should use social media to reaffirm customer purchases during the critical time between the purchasing decision and the official closing of a deal. Creating fresh, quality content and maintaining relationships with customers through actively commenting and replying through social media can also help you cross and up-sell additional products and strengthen customer loyalty. Throughout this process, you should be listening to your customers’ online conversations for new needs, endorsements and even disappointment with your products or services, as it is likely that many of your existing customers aren’t going to tell you these things directly.
How is your business using social media to attract prospects? Do you have any case studies that you would like to share? Do you agree with these points, or do you have your own suggestions?
