The adoption of social
media is reaching a tipping point that may have a profound impact on the way
businesses generate sales leads. The
logic is compelling and firms need to get access to new competences to compete
in the future.
The use of search engines and social media looks to have
reached a tipping point and is set to change significant parts of the business
landscape. One key area is around the
way firms find new sales prospects. Many
predict that social media will make cold calling obsolete. There’s much to suggest this is a logical conclusion.
Whilst cold calling has proved an effective way to generate
new business in the past it does have a few drawbacks:
- It’s a disruptive tactic (the caller interrupts the prospect) which can lead to negative perceptions
- It is increasingly being regulated
- It can be a slow and expensive process to generate quality leads.
So, is calling a list of customers and prospects to
“discover” the one in “n” that has sales potential in the near future, still an
efficient sales tactic?
Technology has
changed the landscape.
Prospects are increasingly using a search engine or a Social Media
platform to start the search for information when they have a business
need. They want to stay in control of
the buying process and undertake as much of the groundwork themselves before
engaging a sales person. Technology
enables them to do that.
Consequently, in order to be in a position to engage
positively with new prospects, organisations need to have search engine
optimised content in blogs, articles, PR releases, newsletters, trade reviews
and other web enabled formats. Our
prospect needs to be able to click on this content and the embedded links to
find the information he or she is looking for.
They will typically go through a behavioural process shown in the
diagram below:
When cold calling, the caller interrupts the prospect to try
and discover if they have an imminent business need and then tries to control
how the prospect goes about the buying process.
Today, prospects and procurement professionals are likely to be more
resistant to any steering from a sales person – they want to be in control instead.
The good news is that
organisations can embrace this change.
The phone call still has a key role to play – to qualify
inbound enquiries and accelerate sales opportunities in addition to the usual
active customer account management function.
Those same telephone agents are also ideally placed to monitor and
engage in the social media dialogues and “chat” or “call-me” requests. Only now, those inbound enquiries will be from from prospects who have actively decided to engage with your business, and so are more likely to have high sales potential!
The generation of new sales enquiries will increasingly move
towards the Search / Social Media environments.
Firms will need to take great care in producing content that not only
can be found in a search but also engages prospects, satisfies their
information needs and encourages them to stay involved (perhaps clicking the
“Follow” button or sign-up for newsletters, RSS feeds or alerts, etc.).
For sophisticated organisations using marketing automation
systems or businesses unable yet to embrace the many new applications
available, the key task will be to develop content that:
- Ranks highly in relevant search results
- Engages prospects and prompts them to click for more information
- Aligns content to the prospect’s specific information needs at the right moment in the buying cycle
- Has embedded links to foster an on-going dialogue.
This is the core task that firms will need to focus upon to generate
new leads in the future. Marketing
professionals need to orient their skill sets towards effective content
creation, and owners of small and medium sized businesses need to plan for all
future content to be search friendly as well.
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