Marketing Tip of the Week: Go Beyond Sales Prospecting with Social Media [Video]

MTOTW #50: Lots of salespeople use social media for prospecting, but it’s useful throughout all stages of the sales process.

Let’s look at the 5 Sales Stages.

1. When you’re building rapport, you can use social media to gain some context on your prospect. What background information can you learn from their job history on LinkedIn? What do their public photos on Facebook tell you about their interests? What common contacts do you share across social media platforms?
2. When looking to create pain points for your prospect, use social media to understand their job responsibilities, and check their employer’s page to understand the company initiatives they are likely facing.
3. When entering the money or qualification stage of the sales process, look at the articles they have shared or “liked,” as well as the LinkedIn Groups they belong to in order to understand what they value.
4. When trying to get your prospect to commit, use social media to help identify other decision makers who may be influencing their ability to do so. Use similar context techniques to help overcome obstacles set up by these other decision makers.
5. Finally, when it is time to close, social media can help you determine appropriate timing. You may be able to tell when your prospect is going on vacation or which days of the week they are focused on the problem you are looking to help them solve. If your prospect is active on LinkedIn on Friday afternoons, you'll know that’s a good time to try and tackle marketing problems.

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