What Might Seem Like Horse Play Could be Serious Business to Increase Sales
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in social media, tags: market research increase sales, social media increase sales
One thing any entrepreneur, business owner, or sales professional knows for certain is you need to get in front of as many of your best potential buyers as possible.
The scarier the economy gets the more costly it gets to close a sale. That means savvy sales experts realize they’ve got to get more from less.
Generation Y has mastered the online world. They proved exactly how effective they are in there techno environment in the last election when young people probably made the biggest impact on an election in history. But are Gen Y’ers the only ones surfing the net and living their lives through their computer?
Perhaps not, Steve Rubel reports “Baby Boomers (those born 1946-1969) are the fastest growing users of social networking sites and are also increasingly reading blogs too”.
Now you may wonder why or how this is important to you.
You may wonder how you could use that information to increase your sales.
Well, that’s exactly what I’d like to challenge you to think about here.
Just a few short years ago social networking sites didn’t even exist. Originally these sites were the domain of the tweens, teens, and young adults. However, things have changed. These sites are now used by businesses including big businesses whose target market isn’t necessarily consumers ages 13-29.
No matter what business you’re in or what you sell you simply have to identify your very best potential clients. You have to know specific details about who they are, how they spend their time, and what they pay attention to. All this because when you know this information you can position yourself in front of them more often, you spend less doing it, and you can do it without hard-selling.
And that’s exactly what some businesses and sales professionals are discovering. Even those selling to other businesses might benefit from social networking. IF they understand their potential clients well enough they can find them, isolate them, and engage them.
Social networking websites are nothing more than electronic communities that allow members to connect, engage, and strengthen their relationships. So if you can identify specific groups within those networking sites and engage the other members of the group you have an opportunity to develop relationships. Plus there’s one similarity between this networking environment and networking in the offline world that could prove a huge advantage. When the leader of a networking group endorses you and what you sell you gain an enormous competitive advantage through the strength of their authority.
Researching social networking sites might be real work rather than horsing around. Once you find the right sites with the right groups you will also need to set clear objectives for engagement. Plus you’ll have to make certain honor the purpose of these sites… networking not direct selling.
How are you using social networking sites to network with potential buyers?
Entries (RSS)
April 8th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
does anyone have ideas on what sites work well for networking and how is it done?
April 8th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Hi Chery,
There are lots of social media sites to choose from. You may want to think about who you want to get to know first. For example, if you’d like to know more professionals and business owners LinkedIn might be a better choice than Twitter.
Think of the social media sites like going to a party. You are just going to meet some people and find interesting people to make friends with. When you discover an interesting person then you might invite them to your website to learn more about a topic of mutual interest.
Once there if they like what they see they might decide to make a stronger connection with you, by subscribing to your list. From there you can keep them up-to-date and deepen your relationship.
The mistake you don’t want to make is trying to sell on one of these websites. You’ll get hammered. Unlike a real life setting people won’t hold back.
How does everyone else make a connection through the social media sties?