EBOOK

Generate Leads & Close Sales in Social Media

OVERCOMING 3 COMMON ROADBLOCKS AFFECTING

SOCIAL MEDIA SALES

INTRODUCTIONAs leading-edge social media users, marketers, customer service representatives and sales agents you’re constantly inundated with an infinite number of tools, dashboards, platforms and other technologies that attempt to make your social media lives easier.

In addition to mastering these tools, you’re required to report on all of the insightful analytics they provide. Both practices can be unnecessarily lengthy and often exhausting.

The scary and difficult part for most organizations is transitioning from monitoring to engaging. You’re suddenly given immediate access to real people who are having real conversations about your products and services, expressing intent to buy or cancel, and discussing their dissatisfaction with your competitors. The truth is, the social media landscape has evolved.

What used to be conversations are becoming transactions. You want to engage these consumers, influence their experiences and reassure them that you’re there to help, but it is hard to know where to start. This tutorial begins where most social media monitoring tools leave off.

We will teach you how to use social media as a sales channel and demonstrate how you can achieve immediate bottom-line results.

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1 WHO DO WE CONNECT WITH?

“More than 70% of social network users shop online”The Neilson Company: The State of Social Media, 2016

2WHAT DO WE SAY?

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

3

THE RIGHT TOOLSCompanies looking to connect with potential prospects on social media all start asking themselves the same question: how do we find actionable sales prospects to engage with?

The volume of messaging on social media is overwhelming! On Twitter, 6000 tweets are sent every second. With such a wealth of messages to sort through, how can you separate the wheat from the chaff?

STEP 1: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE

In order to make sense of the flood of messages, you need an omnichannel customer service software platform with the following capabilities:

• Ability to monitor and engage with social media messages

• Will push customer interactions to a CRM when complete, so that future customer service interactions will be conducted with consistency across all communication channels.

• Most importantly, it needs to have text analytics

The problem with keyword searches is that no matter how well-chosen your keywords are, they’re always mixed with irrelevant search results. Distinguishing the useful from the unhelpful can be time-consuming, challenging, and frustrating. Which is why the latest social media sales and service technologies use text analytics to sort through streams of search results in real time, to eliminate irrelevant messages and only show you what you need to see.

1ST ROADBLOCK

WHO DO WE CONNECT WITH?

Further, text analytics can be used to analyze the type of problem being described and route the message to the correct team for engagement, so that customer service queries go to customer service agents, technical inquiries go to support, and so on. Text analytics allows for the process of prospect mining and categorization to be automated, which frees up your staff for the work of actual engagement – letting you maximize customer satisfaction for sales, retention, and customer service.

STEP 2: FOCUS ON YOUR SALES CUES

Social media sales is an integration of many of your traditional sales practices into a digital strategy. However, social media tools do not aggregate sales data in a traditional sense. Without a tool that offer categorization, sifting through posts with a focus on typical sales cues is extremely difficult.

““Prospects equal options. Master prospecting and you will be the master of your sales destiny”Tibor Shanto, CSO at Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.

IDENTIFYING A PROSPECT

Your first rule of thumb is that your most actionable messages are going to tend to fall into one of four categories:

1. Direct sales mentions: Someone looking to buy your product or service

2. Comparison shoppers: Someone who isn’t sure which product or service they need

3. Competitor Churn: Someone complaining about a competitor’s product or service

4. Referrals: Someone referring your product or service to a third party comparison shopper

DIRECT SALES MENTIONS

Direct sales mentions should be the easiest category of messages to act on, as they represent prospects who have already said that they are interested in purchasing your product or service. However, a timely response is critical to converting the opportunity into a sale:

• 74% of millennials agree that social media responsiveness improves their perception of a brand, but

• 66% of those respondents expect a response in 24 hours or less (Microsoft Dynamics, 2018)

Examples can look like:

Once you have your tools and processes in place, it’s time to get down to identifying leads.

COMPETITOR CHURN

Competitor churn are customers who are unhappy enough with a competitor to complain about their products and services on social media. This can represent a fairly large source of prospects, depending on the industry you’re operating in. A quick response with an offer can make the difference in getting that customer to switch, provided that you are timely and the offer is relevant.

Examples can look like:

COMPARISON SHOPPERS

Comparison shoppers are customers who are looking to make a purchase, but who haven’t settled on what they want to purchase. As with the direct sales mentions, if you are able to reach out proactively and make an offer, you stand a good chance of making a sale – so long as your response is timely! With comparison shoppers, a long response time will likely mean a missed sales opportunity.

Examples can look like:

REFERRALS

The last category is the least common, but the most valuable: customers who like your service and recommend it to others. This kind of earned brand exposure is worth its weight in gold, so don’t squander it! Be sure to reach out right away and put your best foot forward.

Examples can look like:

2ND ROADBLOCK

WHAT DOWE SAY?

BEST PRACTICESOnline communication is different than face-to-face, and lacks a lot of the nonverbal cues that customer service agents rely on in non-text-based mediums, like tone of voice, facial expression, and body language. Without those nonverbal cues, it’s easy to be misinterpreted. So how can you communicate in a way that seems friendly and professional?

Here are some best practices:

NOBODY LIKES A SPAMMER

The worst-case scenario when engaging with new prospects on Twitter is having someone report you as spam, block or ignore you. You’re at risk of this if you’re copying and pasting the same response repeatedly, which can be tempting when you first see a high volume of social media leads.

However, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity. Take the time to personalize your message, because customers will respond to the human touch.

“ “Twitter is not technology. It’s a conversation. And it’s happening with or without you.”Charlene Li Founder, Altimeter Group

USE EMPATHY STATEMENTS

In sales as well as customer service, empathy statements help to establish a sense of understanding and trust between you and the customer. Customers want to know that you understand how they are feeling, and that their feelings are justified. Emotional language is also important, because it compensates for the fact that text-based communication channels can make communication sound cold and impersonal.

When you are able to identify a customer need, validate their emotions, and offer a solution, you are much more likely to receive a positive response that leads to a sale.

RE-DIRECT THE TWEET

We see this all the time in social media, often those who are monitoring the brand online aren’t the ones who can action the engagement. For example, if you’re in the marketing department, often you won’t have access to the technical or account management solutions required to support the customer. The solution? Forward to someone who can help. Re-direct the tweet to your support channel with a quick introduction and a “hope this helps”. It will establish rapport with the customer and possibly lend to retention.

If you have time, follow up with the engagement internally as well.

FOLLOW YOUR PROSPECTS, BUT DON’T BE AGGRESSIVE

Show that you’re serious about engaging by following the user that you’re reaching out to. If they’re having an issue with their current product/service from a competitor, they will want to feel appreciated and acknowledged. Following them is the easiest, most effective way to open up the lines of communication. If they respond, this also allows you the opportunity to DM (direct message) and potentially initiate a deeper engagement.

However, it’s important not to push too hard on getting your customers to follow you back, especially if you are engaging with a customer that is unhappy with your company’s product or service! Unhappy customers often, perhaps rightly, perceive attempts to “drag conversations to DMs” as an effort to sweep customer service issues under the rug, and may react by complaining more vociferously.

“ “By 2020, 85% of the buyer seller interaction will happen through social media.”Josiane Feigon, CEO TeleSmart

3RD ROADBLOCK

WHATHAPPENS NEXT?

ENGAGEMENT OBJECTIVESAt some point you may take your prospects off-channel. You will not, for example, request private information such as account numbers or credit card details over the social web. By moving to phone, chat or email channels you can commence your traditional sales process.

It is easier to address a need in more than 140 characters. Request the consumer’s contact information and setup a phone call or webinar.

Opening up the lines of communication with the prospect and establishing a meaningful connection helps to build a positive online community, fosters referrals and is the catalyst to exceptional customer service.

Once you’ve closed the sale and turned a consumer into a customer, we suggest reaching out to them in social media once more to solidify the relationship.

LET’S TAKE CARE OFYOUR ROADBLOCKSSO YOU CAN STARTGENERATING LEADS

TODAY.

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EXPERTS!

InTheChat offers a full suite of products that help you get the most out of your social media sales, service and retention efforts. Contact us for a complimentary demo and discussion.

Our software will overcome your first roadblock and our dedicated client support team will help guide you through the rest of the social media sales and servicing process.

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