Sales 2.0 and the impact of social media at New Marketing Experience
15-04-2010
Last week we were attending at Chris Brogan's event New Marketing Experience in San Francisco.
A great event with lots of experts in the field of inbound marketing and Social Media. Some of the themes discussed are:
A great event with lots of experts in the field of inbound marketing and Social Media. Some of the themes discussed are:
- Sales 2.0 – using new marketing tools to change the way your sales team makes sales
- Content Marketing
- Integrating Offline & Online Experiences
- The Social Inbox: Extending the Reach of Email
- Listening and Monitoring - The New Way to Market
A lot of good tips and useful insights were shared by speakers, vendors and attendees. Social Media was of course one of the biggest trends discussed.
Let me share some of those tips and big challenge companies are still facing. I will focus on the Sales 2.0 topic (I personally think that the other topics should lead to extra sales - or services - which is probably the goal of your online presence, right?).
Anyway, Sales 2.0. Or the 'new' way to do sales. There is a clear separation for doing sales in b2c or b2b with their own challenges and solutions, although for example they both should use Social Media to reach their target audience.
Sales 2.0 in B2C: extend your sales channel online and make sure you get in contact with your (potential) customers. Needless to say, Social Media is where you want to be. Twitter, Facebook, that's where your customers are. Although some solutions were mentioned to monitor aggregated Social Media, the biggest challenge companies are still facing is how to turn 'Listening and Monitoring' into actionable results. It’s nice to have reports, data and diagrams, but then what…?
E-mail marketing (which was covered in the topic 'Social Inbox') is another channel you don't want to neglect. Tips for e-mail marketing are: make your message short, real short and link back to your website where the rest of the content is. This gives you two advantages, (1) readers using a mobile device are more likely to open your e-mail, read it, and open the link to your website. (2) You can track all user behavior on your site, monitor what (and if) they find interesting and convert users to customers. Of course, it starts with great content...
Sales 2.0 In B2B is of course a difference story: LinkedIn is the place to be. Nothing new to that. But how should you use LinkedIn? Some tips mentioned: get as many connections as possible and share that account within your organization (that everyone has access to all LinkedIn profiles), answer questions to establish thought leadership, add presentations (through slideshare) because people like pretty pictures, and make your profile public with the right content. Last but not least: create many inbound links on LinkedIn to your online channel to generate more traffic where you want to do your sales (or ‘conversion’).
Join the conversation on Twitter and send us your comments.
Jurriaan Souer
International business development - GX Software
Let me share some of those tips and big challenge companies are still facing. I will focus on the Sales 2.0 topic (I personally think that the other topics should lead to extra sales - or services - which is probably the goal of your online presence, right?).
Anyway, Sales 2.0. Or the 'new' way to do sales. There is a clear separation for doing sales in b2c or b2b with their own challenges and solutions, although for example they both should use Social Media to reach their target audience.
Sales 2.0 in B2C: extend your sales channel online and make sure you get in contact with your (potential) customers. Needless to say, Social Media is where you want to be. Twitter, Facebook, that's where your customers are. Although some solutions were mentioned to monitor aggregated Social Media, the biggest challenge companies are still facing is how to turn 'Listening and Monitoring' into actionable results. It’s nice to have reports, data and diagrams, but then what…?
E-mail marketing (which was covered in the topic 'Social Inbox') is another channel you don't want to neglect. Tips for e-mail marketing are: make your message short, real short and link back to your website where the rest of the content is. This gives you two advantages, (1) readers using a mobile device are more likely to open your e-mail, read it, and open the link to your website. (2) You can track all user behavior on your site, monitor what (and if) they find interesting and convert users to customers. Of course, it starts with great content...
Sales 2.0 In B2B is of course a difference story: LinkedIn is the place to be. Nothing new to that. But how should you use LinkedIn? Some tips mentioned: get as many connections as possible and share that account within your organization (that everyone has access to all LinkedIn profiles), answer questions to establish thought leadership, add presentations (through slideshare) because people like pretty pictures, and make your profile public with the right content. Last but not least: create many inbound links on LinkedIn to your online channel to generate more traffic where you want to do your sales (or ‘conversion’).
Join the conversation on Twitter and send us your comments.
Jurriaan Souer
International business development - GX Software
