If you’re using social media to sell B2B, then you want to be using it effectively. Connect and pitch is an outdated method that generates limited results and turns off potential prospects. It’s better to get enquiries from prospects organically, but how?
Using social media effectively to make sales
If you’re reading this then it is likely that you are a business owner, a salesperson, or a marketing professional. You are frustrated with the lack of engagement and visibility you are getting online.
For those of you who are already producing content, your views are likely low and your only likes are from friends or family. For those of you who aren’t producing content, how do you ever expect to generate interest?
Social media is a fantastic tool that has been increasingly used to facilitate B2B sales, connect to prospects and increase brand awareness. When used correctly it can prove to be a very rewarding resource.
Instead of shooting in the dark when it comes to your social media strategy, I want to show you a model that can be used to generate inbound enquiries using social media posts. You’ll no longer have to work to chase leads, they’ll come to you.
Why your posts aren’t working
So, you’re posting on all the right social media sites but not getting any leads. This isn’t because your audience isn’t there. After all, I hope you would have done your research before signing up to that site. No, the reason you have no engagement is that your post isn’t offering your audience any value.
When looking at the existing social media content for businesses that are struggling online, one thing becomes clear – you are writing your posts from your own perspective or the perspective of your business.
This immediately has an impact on the success and engagement of your post because rather than thinking about what the customer wants to hear, or the language they respond to, you’re thinking about what you want to tell them.
Identify your benefits
Human beings generally only engage with things that interest them. If your post is tailored towards your business, your ideal prospect isn’t going to bother with it. Instead, you need to showcase the benefits of your product or service in a way that excites your customer and draws them in.
To create content that generates organic enquiries you need to think about what your customer wants to hear. The first step here is to write down ten key benefits that your product or service offers your ideal prospect.
Think about the results, outcomes and successes you can deliver. It’s important to make this list as specific as possible using a language that your prospect will understand. This can be difficult as it’s easy to choose generic benefits, but the more specific your list, the better.
Identify your customers issues
The next step is to imagine all of the thoughts, feelings, and frustrations that your customers and prospects might be experiencing because they don’t currently have your product or service.
It can be helpful to think of this as a journey. Your prospect wants to reach a specific destination but they have an obstacle in their way. Your product or service can solve that problem, remove the obstacle and help them reach their destination.
Visualising it like this should help you identify any problems that could act as their obstacle. From here, list the symptoms of the problem and the consequences. Write these down as specially and realistically as possible.
Start creating content for organic enquiries
Now you have the information in front of you clearly showing the issues your customers face and the benefits of your product or service, you can start creating content. This information will help you form a post that will get your inbound enquiries on social media.
Start by using the post to describe the situation that the customer finds themselves in without your service. For example, if you are a marketing agency then your prospect might be struggling to engage their customers, communicate their value, get inbound leads, or use Facebook ads.
Whatever your specific customer’s issue is, describe it in your post. Be sure to make it emotive, describing how they must feel and all the other avenues they could have exhausted before finding your product or service.
Follow this up with a few short lines that showcase your expertise. Talk about how you have helped other customers who have been in the same situation and how your product or service solved their problem. Then end with two to three sentences offering guidance on what to do, without a sales pitch.
Once you’ve written your post and you’re happy with it, publish it to the social media channels of your choice – my favourite is LinkedIn. Continue doing this consistently and then review the success of your posts.
When you look back you’ll be able to decide what has and hasn’t worked and then leverage this on-demand. Then you’ll be more confident about putting out a post and getting inbound leads. They might start slow but after you get better at creating the content you’ll get more organic enquiries.
Why am I telling you this?
It may seem strange to give away useful information for free, without pitching for business, but it is an effective method. I’m using it right now – giving you this step by step guide on how to generate organic leads without selling my services.
Not convinced? I want you to go and implement this, practice it and see the results for yourself. If you want a bit of extra help, try this method a few times and then screenshot your posts, then send them to me on social media and I will give you feedback and share some tips with you on how to improve it.
Oh, and I will do this all for free too. Why? Because I think that the best way to build your brand is to show people that you can solve their problems. This article aims to help you create content that will show your clients you can solve their problems, in return you’re going to see that I can help you solve yours.
