I found this article on lead nurturing, I was inspired to write my own. 

Covid19 has changed the way we buy

Over the last 18 months as Covid 19 spread across the world, business buyers have moved onto social media.

In Simon Kemp's research, here, the latest from October 2021, here, this is how the internet and social media has transformed the world.

  • There are now 4.5 billion social media users around the world, which is equal to 58% of the world’s total population.

These people spend, daily, 2 hours and 27 minutes active on social media.

Just think if all these people are looking for your products and services!

Social media has changed the world

It is our belief here at DLA Ignite that social media has changed the world, it's changed society and it's changed the way we do business. 

How can we use social media to nurture business?

If you think about the best sales tactic in the world, would be .... everyday we take out client out for lunch where we have the chance to talk to get to know them and talk to them about our products and services. 

Why would this be great?  We would get to know our client, they would always be up-to-date with our products and services and we would always be front of mind.  Terrible for the waistline.

If that is the ideal way of lead nurturing, what if we can do that all with social media and social selling?

How can social selling help with lead nurturing?

I've itemised before that the three key things you need with social selling are; buyer-centric profile, a digital network and insightful content.

In our social selling and influence course, we teach and coach salespeople to have all of those skills.

Take a look at anybody who works for DLA Ignite, we are our own reference site. 

Modern buyers are highly skeptical about sales and marketing messages they encounter.

According to a Forrester report, 59% of buyers prefer to do research online instead of interacting with a sales rep because the rep pushes a sales agenda rather than helps solve a problem.

At the same time, salespeople continue to focus on selling, rather than helping prospects along their path to purchase.

Buyers are looking for salespeople to be .... human, they are looking for people they can trust, people that will help them and all of this can be achieved via social media.

Salespeople need buyer centric profiles, they need to be connected to their clients and prospects on social and they need to create authentic content.  Not brochures and white papers but content that will provide insight, education and entertainment. 

Digital hope is not a strategy

Many companies, offset this by introducing "digital hope", this is where you employ people in their twenties and you hope they will work something out. After all, they are digital natives, right? 

A friend of mine told me his company was employing somebody whose responsibility it will be to take the business to digital.  I pointed out that this person's LinkedIn profile offered no evidence that they understood digital.

I'm not Millennial bashing, I'm just saying that a business should be built on strategy with clear methodologies, we all know hope is not a strategy.

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling?  Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind” 

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

I don't believe you Tim!

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a $2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the DLA Ignite social selling and influence course. 

Here at DLA Ignite we don't do "hints and tips sessions" we don't want you to waste your money. Our social selling and influence methodology will provide your sales team with the stable platform for growth. It is also the only social selling program based on 70:20:10 change management principles which gives your business the mindset change and habit change they need in this digital world.