B2B Social Selling: A new emerging trend?

Over the last 5 years the effectiveness of outreach to prospects has fallen. Despite outreach volumes increasing 70%, the response rate is under 30%.  

An explanation for this is that the sales sector is overcrowded with more enterprises competing for more leads than ever. Because of this saturation, outreach initiatives are everywhere, making it hard for any message to stand out. Potential prospects are often overwhelmed by the volume of cold emails, causing "prospect fatigue." This phenomenon lowers engagement rates since prospects are pickier about which communications to reply to.

Additionally, the quality of outreach has not kept pace with the increase in quantity, often lacking personalization and relevance, which further diminishes its effectiveness.

Why Social Selling?

According to Gartner, it is anticipated that by next year (2025), a significant 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur via digital channels.

Many companies simply incorporate social selling into their current processes to connect with potential clients. Some turn to LinkedIn when phone calls and emails don't yield results - it's a fresh opportunity for success.  

Is it limited to just pitching?  

Nope, not at all. A lot of people begin with that mindset and claim, “LinkedIn isn’t effective.” Sales technology has led us to overlook its core purpose: to enhance the performance of salespeople. I believe it has turned numerous sellers into mere order-takers. It's suggested that we focus our efforts on those who engage with our automated emails and communications. When did sales turn into mere transactions? When did we lose sight of the importance of salespeople?  

According to Jill Rowley, Chief Evangelist and startup advisor for #SocialSelling, she believes that “Social selling is not just about selling, it's about providing value.”. And the stats back this up - 78% of sales professionals leveraging social media outperform those who don’t. Social selling is a highly effective approach that connects you to a vast audience and drives meaningful results.

Benefits of social selling for B2B companies

In the digital marketplace where 93% of successful B2B Sales have already placed their bets, there's one platform that stands head and shoulders above the rest – LinkedIn. But here's the catch: while everyone knows LinkedIn is the B2B giant, a strategic multi-platform approach incorporating Facebook's 80% market penetration and X's (formerly Twitter) 71% reach could be the difference between merely participating and dominating in the B2B social selling space. The question isn't just where to sell, but how to orchestrate your presence across these platforms for maximum impact.

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However, until now, LinkedIn is still considered as the powerhouse for B2B social selling. with a staggering 77% of B2B Sales or Marketers leveraging its professional network to drive sales and engagement. In addition, 75% of B2B customers utilize social media to make purchase decisions, with 50% relying on LinkedIn as a trusted source, according to LinkedIn Sales Solution.

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This dominance highlights LinkedIn's unparalleled ability to connect businesses with decision-makers. Moreover, this is the easiest platform to connect with a host of C-suite professionals and sales managers.

How can B2B Sales leverage Social Selling?

Prospected Primming

By implementing a strategic social selling process that prioritized creating awareness and familiarity with prospects, companies have seen remarkable improvements in both email open rates and call booking success. The "prospect priming" approach demonstrates that taking time to build connections before selling is not just courteous – it's highly effective.

At its core, social selling embodies a timeless truth of business: relationships matter. While many sales departments remain fixated on immediate metrics and aggressive targeting, the most successful sellers understand that genuine relationship-building is the foundation of sustainable sales success.  

For example.

I have a friend working for a HR software company. She noticed their cold LinkedIn messages weren't working, so she changed her approach. Instead of immediately pitching the HR software, she spent two weeks engaging with prospects' posts about workplace culture and sharing relevant articles about employee engagement.  

When she finally reached out to these same prospects with her pitch, her response rate jumped from 2% to 15% - all because she built familiarity before asking for their time.

According to Dean Seddon, a LinkedIn Sales Influencer, the whole process of “prospect primming” is simple:

• Connect with the prospects

• Share a mix of product, industry and more personal content

• Engage with prospects to build rapport

• Call or outreach them after 5 touchpoints.

Inbound Sales Inquiries

Sellers who actively engage with their network on social platforms like LinkedIn tend to receive more inbound sales inquiries. By sharing helpful content and building relationships, sellers can extend the marketing reach of the business and prompt prospects to engage with them directly. This is especially crucial since it often requires up to 21 touchpoints with a potential customer to close a deal. What many overlook is that when a potential customer encounters content shared by a seller, it can significantly enhance that journey and encourage them to connect with the seller.

Investing in social selling allows sellers to generate their own leads and become a hybrid seller-marketer. Rather than just focusing on quick conversions, sellers can take a short-term and long-term approach, nurturing prospects at scale while also developing immediate opportunities. This can help sellers smash their targets by leveraging the power of social selling.

B2B Referral Business

In the world of sales and networking, building long-term relationships is key to generating referrals. One underestimated element of social selling on LinkedIn is the long-term benefit of these referrals. When you become known and invest in relationships, your connections are more likely to recommend you to their contacts.  

In fact, many sellers are able to pick up 2-3 quoting opportunities per month simply because they were recommended by someone in their network. Referrals don't always need to come from clients - they can also come from contacts you've fostered a relationship with, even if they are not direct customers.  

QUICK CONCLUSION

Social selling in the B2B space is an effective lead-generation strategy that delivers reliable and top-notch outcomes. These different platforms offer an excellent opportunity to discover new prospects and possibly establish fresh sales and business connections. Staying true to yourself and being reliable are essential for success in social selling on these platforms.

The most important sales platforms in the next few years are likely to be "content marketing" and "social media," which are used by 42.1% and 68.4% of businesses, respectively. It's clear that business-to-business social selling won't stop any time soon, so what are you waiting for?

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