Everyone wants to increase sales and leads effectively, and with 80% of leads coming from LinkedIn in 2019 alone, there will be stiff competition when it comes to social selling. How do you stand out among a crowd of sales professionals? We will answer this question by analyzing 5 examples of social selling that work and that you will like.
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile
When you get a connection on LinkedIn, what’s the first thing you do? You must first consult their profile.
Most B2B prospects will take a look at your profile before accepting your connection. If it sounds bad or doesn’t make sense to connect, they won’t. Online connections are made in much the same way as in the real world, first impressions count.
You need to think of your LinkedIn profile as your personal advertising space to sell yourself and your business. It means putting yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and asking yourself:
- Does my profile look credible?
- Does my content provide valuable information for my target market?
The more your profile is optimized, the more it will appear in search results and the more traction you will get. For a profile that stands out, you will need:
- A professional photo.
- A great background banner – why not use this space to advertise your business or product?
- A summary that explains to people who you are, what you do, and how to get in touch with you in the clearest and most concise way possible.
- Be targeted with your LinkedIn connections
Once your profile is optimized, you can start connecting with people. According to LinkedIn, 76% of buyers are ready to have a conversation with you. However, that doesn’t mean you should start selling right away. You need to start by interacting with the content of your prospects and making a real connection with them.
Why should you adopt this method? Remember this statistic: Studies have shown that it increases the likelihood of a response by 62%. Now here’s the kicker: the best practice is to add no more than 30 people per day. Why only 30 people? First, LinkedIn will ban you if you log in in bulk. Second, it doesn’t look great just to add people for no real reason behind the connection.
And you want people to care about what you do on LinkedIn. This is how you expand your reach, build brand awareness, and generate quality leads.
- Share quality content daily
If you want to be successful with your outbound sales on LinkedIn, creating a solid content strategy is essential. Over half of your customer loyalty comes from your ability to deliver insightful and valuable content.
So, for the best engagement, you should post at least once a day and your content should be a variety of sales, not overly pointy, and more informal posts that are relevant, tell a story, and engage people with charisma.
Think about your goal: How do you want your customers to feel when they see your messages? You don’t want to bore them, you want them to engage and build a relationship of trust with your brand.
- Interact with your prospects to gain credibility and confidence
If you want to prospect smoothly, gain the trust of your prospects. How do you get there? Create a profile that stands out and back it up with a great content strategy by sharing valuable content. People will respect and recommend you, even if they’ve never bought you just because of what you’ve shared.
The more you interact with your prospects, the better your relationship will be. Building a strong network by commenting, sharing and reacting to their content will go a long way in building trust with your prospect, but also by encouraging them to refer you to others.
Your prospects aren’t the only people you should interact with. The more you get your name, the better! Here are a few tips:
- If you don’t have anything to post that day, a simple transfer with your thoughts on the content can generate a lot of engagement.
- Mark your prospects if the content is relevant.
- Don’t share for fun! If you share without commenting on your opinion or copy and paste someone else’s post, you’re showing your prospects that you don’t want to make the effort. This means that your credibility will decrease. Plus, no one wants to see the same thing shared over and over again.
- Dare to be different when starting conversations
When everyone uses the same template to send outbound prospecting messages, it quickly gets boring. Most prospects hit delete as soon as they see the opening line. So how can you be different?
- Stay natural and make your prospect feel special by creating an original post that shows you’ve done your research. It can be as simple as tailoring the post to include a post they shared and your thoughts on it.
- Don’t talk about your talent. Your prospects are always sharing information; each of their LinkedIn posts tells you something about what they’re looking for. The best salespeople speak not of themselves, but of others. Show your prospects how your product or service will add value to their lives and solve their problems.
- Send a video message or voice note. Focus especially on your first 10 seconds – that’s what will hook your prospect.
