Why you need to create a more progressive digital marketing strategy, Tim Hughes

Now is the time to take a stock of where we are and what we need to do as a business moving forward.

The five truths about the current state of marketing

1. Your prospects are now active online

If we look at the latest research from Hootsuite and We Are Social, here, there are now 4.48 billion people active on social media, that is 56.8% of the world's population. That's a year on year increase of 13.1%, or put it another way 520 million people have joined social media in the last year. If you take out of that the old and the young, from a B2B prospective, all your prospects and customers are online.

The average person (your prospects and customers) are spending 2 hours and 24 minutes active on social media.

2. The old paradigms of marketing are over

Current Marketing isn't working anymore - who says Gartner!

In this webinar Gartner share research that states that

"64% of B2B customers cannot tell brands apart"

"Humans spend 10 seconds or less viewing web pages regardless of quality"

"76% of B2B customers do nothing once they see the brand experience"

Let's look at the current marketing activities one by one and see what the research says for all of them

3. Advertising isn't working

We see figures that the spend of advertising is increasing. The reason for this, is it just doesn't work, so people have to try and spend more to get it work.

We all spend our day trying to keep away from brands putting their message in front of us.

On a recent interview on my podcast, we went through that digital advertising has an average of 98.8 % failure rate.

Facebook ads have a 1.61% success rate.

Google ads have a 1.91 % success rate.

Programatic has a 0.35 % success rate.

Thus digital advertising has an average 98.8% failure rate.

4. Email marketing isn't working

According to this article from The Drum, "According to Hubspot, the response rate to emails fell to a record ... Said differently, 98% of our efforts to reach new prospects failed."

Let's just confirm that, according to Hubspot and they sell email marketing systems so they have a vested interest to talk up email marketing, confirm that email marketing has a 98% failure rate.

5. Cold Calling isn't working

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"

With all of these legacy sales methods no longer working, people are switching to social selling.

Why? Because of the great case studies and great returns.

Social selling is not about spamming people on social, that's spamming people on social.

Social is using the DLA Ignite methodology to have a buyer centric profile, build a network and to share insightful content.

How can marketing be front and central to this move to social?

First your business needs a strategy and here at DLA Ignite, we can help you business with that, see this article here.

If you are interested, we go through in more detail on this webinar.

Next the marketing team need to look at

Measurement
Empowerment and education (activation) of the people for the business
Keeping people on track
Coaching
Onboarding
Transition to being a media organisation

Today we are going to look at measurement.

The business can measure a number of leading indicators that will measure to see if the business is on track.

The number of connections a salesperson makes and are salespeople growing their network into the accounts they are looking to influence (sales to)?
The views a salesperson is getting on their content
The engagement they get on content - All engagement is the ability for sales people to have conversations and conversations drive sales
How many conversations are the sales people having through social
How many of these conversations are leading to meetings
How many of these meetings are leading to proposals
How many of these proposals are leading to sales

So who's social selling?

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.

Other articles you might be interested in ....

Would you buy social selling training course from somebody that doesn't use social selling?

How to create budget and build a business case for your social selling project

Articles for the CEO

What does success in a social selling project look like?

Can I be fired for not social selling?

How to Build an Executive Social Media Strategy That Works

What's the difference between legacy sales and modern selling?

Is making no change to my sales team an option in the world today?

Can my business speak directly to the modern buyer while retaining control of the message?

What is the secret sauce of social selling?

Can social selling break down the silos between sales and marketing?

Can I turn my LinkedIn time line from a load of rubbish into a load of value?

Why your random acts of social are killing your business

Can I find investors for my business with social selling?

Not understanding social selling is totally fine

Your social selling project isn't a decision of "yes" or "no" , it's when

Are you still measuring digital with an analogue mindset?

Can Social Selling help me navigate the great resignation?

Should my 2022 business planning include social selling?

Can I be data driven with social selling?

How grid selling will transform your pipeline and win rate

Can I use social selling as a small business?

Is your competition transforming to social selling in stealth mode?

We need more campaigns - Really?

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Articles for RevOps

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How can RevOps and social selling increase the accuracy of my forecast?

Can RevOps and Social Selling provide me with a framework for predictable revenue

How to Make the Transition to Revenue Operations - RevOps

The 8-Step checklist to evaluating your 2022 RevOps strategy

How Revenue Operations RevOps can drive your retention and expansion strategy

Articles for Sales leadership

10 reasons you get social selling all wrong

For fax sake at least know what social selling is before you dismiss it!

Why you must avoid social selling initiatives that are no more than lip service

What is social selling?

Can I see which salespeople are contributing with social selling?

Can I get a consistent prospecting framework for managers with social selling?

Can I get complete visibility to measure and monitor each reps results with social selling?

Can I get accountability across my sales team for prospecting with social selling

Can I gain an effective prospecting framework with social selling?

Can cold calling and email marketing kill my business?

Can I measure our social selling project?

Can my lack of confidence of social be holding my team back?

Can I get the most from my sales navigator licenses with social selling?

Can I de-risk my pipeline with social selling?

Can my salespeople create content?

Can social selling create value for my clients?

Can I use prospect sequencing with social selling?

Can I build a social selling program or should I buy one?

Can my behaviour on social media be losing me business?

Can I run QBRs with social selling?

Can I increase deal velocity with social selling?

Can social selling help me sell, if everybody is on vacation?

Can social selling help me avoid attrition in sales teams?

Can social selling help with team selling?

Reading blogs won't transform your pipeline

You are the sum of all your digital handshakes

Why social selling isn't just marketing

The difference between LinkedIn training and social selling training

Can programmatic social selling sort my pipeline issues?

Will being part of the conversation on social generate me any revenue?

Can social selling help me with virtual selling?

Social media engagement - None of my sales team have time for it. Really?

Should my salespeople be making time to create social posts? Of course

Can Social posts create pipeline or opportunities? You bet!

There is a clear gap opening in business between those companies that have a pipeline problem and those that don't ...

How are you going to build pipeline and prospect now that all the low hanging fruit has gone?

Can I still prospect during the holidays?

Can I benchmark my social selling?

Are you implying social engagement is as valuable to our outreach efforts as phone calls and emails? - Yes!

Articles to support sales people - sales process and sales tips

Why your leadership is wrong when they tell you that to get more pipeline requires you to send more email and make more calls

Can social selling help with my discovery calls?

Is social selling inmailing people on Linkedin?

How do I sell global deals with social selling?

Can I unblock deals with social selling?

Can I get more meetings with VPs with social selling?

Can I get on more short lists with social selling?

Am I being outsold by my social selling competition?

Can social selling stop prospects from ghosting me?

Can I be a catalyst to change with my prospects with social

Can I influence the buyer's journey with social selling?

Can I optimise my selling time with social selling?

Can I gain a competitive advantage with social selling?

Why automation is a zero sum game

Can I get a predictable prospecting system with social selling?

Can I sell $1 Million deals with social selling?

Can I get headhunted for my next job with social selling?

Can I use prospect sequencing with social selling?

Can I use social selling if I have nothing to say?

Looking for hacks, maybe you shouldn't

How do I make the most of a slow summer sales period?

How do I sell social selling training to my boss?

Can I get invited to more client top table discussions with social selling?

What is the best way to influence my LinkedIn network?

Can I use social selling to sell into a territory?

Can I use social selling to grow pipeline within target accounts?

Can social selling help me if my companies website isn’t good enough?

Can social selling help me if my prospect list is out of date?

Can social selling help me if we are too expensive?

Do my SDRs need to become hybrid?

Can social selling help me if we are not market leader?

Can social selling help me get past gatekeepers?

I don't know you. I've never spoken to you. You've never acknowledged my existence. But you want me to help you!

What should you do if your leadership team is not social

Can my content, create action in my prospects with social selling?

Can social selling work for me as an SDR?

I need to do this Linkedin thing and I need to do it now

Should I do a post or an article on LinkedIn?

How to deal with depression in sales

Why prospecting today is about clicks and likes

We need to help with crafting a Linkedin message sequence and outreach campaign - really?

How to post content that converts likes on social media into sales

Articles to support channel and third party selling

Can social selling help my channel partners sell more?

Our VP of Sales Just got 83 likes on a LinkedIn post, so that means we are social selling? No!

Should you outsource your social media?

Can I get banned from LinkedIn if somebody else manages my profile?

Articles for social procurement

Can I use social media in procurement and supply chain?

How social transformed procurement

Articles for the CFO and Finance

Accelerating digital skills is one of the top priorities for finance leaders

How to capitalise on the great resignation; to sell more and how to find and retain the best sales talent

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Marketing teams are increasingly under pressure to stand out from their peers at a time where the proliferation of consumer platforms is complicating outreach efforts. With the pace of technology evolving rapidly, many digital marketing pros are advocating for a more progressive and experimental approach.

https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/creating-a-more-progressive-digital-marketing-strategy/