Do you pay proper attention to building a solid and effective strategy for your marketing team every year?
You should do it.
An annual marketing plan helps you take the right marketing strategy and achieve your business goals. Consider it as a high-level plan that guides the direction of your campaigns, business goals and the growth of your team.
Without it, the situation can become complex – and it is almost impossible to establish the budget you have to guarantee for the projects, the hiring and the outsourcing you’ll come across in a year if you don’t have a plan.
Keep in mind that the marketing plan you need varies by industry and by the goals of your marketing team. To simplify the creation, we have put together a list of what to include and some different planning models.
To begin, let’s see what a high-level marketing plan is.
Essential elements of a Marketing Plan
Marketing plans can get pretty gritty in reflecting the sector you work in, if you want to sell to consumers (B2C) or other companies (B2B) and how big your digital presence is. So here are six elements that every effective marketing plan includes:
1. Business Summary
In a marketing plan, your Business Summary is exactly what it looks like: a summary of your business. This includes your organization’s name, location, and mission statement – which should all be consistent with the company as a whole.
The Business Summary of your marketing plan also includes a SWOT analysis, which indicates the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Be patient with your company’s SWOT analysis; you will be the one to write most of them based on how you complete the elements of the following marketing plan.
2. Business Initiatives
The Business Initiatives part of a marketing plan helps you to segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include large corporate initiatives that you would normally find in a business plan. This section of your marketing plan should highlight specific marketing projects. You will also describe the goals of those projects and how these goals will be measured.
3. Target Market
Here you will conduct some basic market research. If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier. Furthermore, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe your sales sector, an analysis of your competitors, and your personal buyer. A person buyer is a semi-fictitious description of your ideal client, focused on features such as age, location, job title, and personal challenges.
4. Market Strategy
Your Market Strategy uses the information contained in the Reference Market section to describe how your company should approach the market. What will your business offer your buyers that your competitors are not already offering? In the full version of a marketing plan, this section may contain “the seven marketing P’s”. These P are products, prices, places, promotions, people, processes and physical evidence. (You’ll find more information on these seven elements in our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)
5. Budget
Don’t misunderstand the Budget element of your marketing plan with the price of your products or other financial data of the company. Your budget describes how much money the company has allocated to the marketing team to carry out the initiatives and goals listed in the previous elements. Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should try to divide this budget based on specific expenses. For example, marketing expenses include a marketing agency, marketing software, paid promotions and events (the ones you will host and/or participate in).
6. Marketing channels
Finally, your marketing plan will include a list of your marketing channels. While your company could promote the product itself using advertising space, with the marketing channels you publish the content that educates your buyers, generate contacts and spread the knowledge of your brand.
If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the right place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to expose on which social networks you want to start a page of your business, what you will use this social network for and how you will measure your success on these channels. Part of the purpose of this section is to demonstrate to your superiors, both inside and outside of Marketing, that these channels will grow the business.
Businesses with a strong social media presence could also consider deepening a social media strategy in a separate model of a social media plan.
Get the first results and climb quickly!
The best way to plan your annual marketing plan is to get the first results quickly, so you can quickly scale and focus (together with your team) on more challenging goals and more sophisticated projects before the fourth quarter.
The digital market does not stop evolving, year after year more innovations are positioned in favor of the new demands and behavior of potential users. In this case, e-commerce trends for 2019 seek to optimize the user experience, while taking advantage of new technological developments. So take data on what updates are expected for the e-commerce sector.
E-commerce trends for 2019: What does the market hold?
The more technology evolves, the more incredible developments we will see. And, therefore, we will have to adapt them to raise the visibility and positioning of our website. Let’s review them in detail:
Incorporation of voice searches
According to Google and Search Engine Land, 20% of all searches are based on voice. Therefore, e-commerce sites will also have to assimilate this trend to stand out. Well now users resort to this type of searches to find more concrete results and, of course, they find it more comfortable.
Forbes also highlighted the relevance of this element in the e-commerce trends for 2019, indicating that currently the voice search shopping market is positioned at $ 2 billion, estimating that it will grow to $ 40 billion by 2020. that, this innovation must be adapted to highlight the brand.
Use of augmented reality
The use of augmented reality (AR) in the e-commerce sector, every day becomes more frequent. This is precisely why it is positioned as a strategy that will continue to have a stronger impact on the virtual shopping market for this year.
Recall that augmented reality provides a shopping experience very similar to physical purchases. Precisely for this reason, large and renowned electronic stores have already incorporated this wonderful technology. Such is the case of Sephora, a cosmetics chain that uses augmented reality to allow its buyers to experience looks and make-up. Likewise, Amazon has also made use of this technology, where appropriate, allows testing different products and devices.
Combination between machine learning and artificial intelligence
Machine Learning, also known as Machine Learning (ML) together with Artificial Intelligence (AI), promises to be a powerful combination for this year. Therefore, it is among the e-commerce trends for 2019. Considering that the expectations of the online user turn more to obtain a personalized experience, both ML and AI become an ideal fusion to increase the success of your ecommerce. Keep in mind that both technologies allow brands to provide a more personalized shopping experience for their users. In this way, negative feedback is reduced.
Integration of Chatbots to customer service
Although chatbots refer to a term that is just beginning to gain weight in marketing, for this year they are already an indispensable element in electronic commerce. Above all, to optimize customer service. Even marketing studies estimate that chatbots will be the first direct experience of many users with automation based on artificial intelligence.
And is that, this small software provides a level of service very similar to human. Allowing the user to be guided throughout the purchase process immediately. In this way, a more positive experience is achieved and results plus benefits. As much for the mark by as for the internaut one.
Faster deliveries
The time it takes a product to reach the customer’s hands is crucial to position a website in the market. As a brand, from the moment in which the user goes from being a lead to a customer by pressing the purchase button, the procedures have to be initiated so that the order reaches their hands quickly.
Therefore, among e-commerce trends for 2019, e-commerce will start to stand out thanks to the speed of deliveries. Already since 2018, recognized companies like Amazon began to adopt this trend by speeding up delivery speed.
It is tempting for companies to share their content exclusively to drive sales or marketing, neglecting authentic commitment.
It takes discipline to share content from like-minded companies or industry opinion leaders.
You may have heard from co-workers or business owners that social networks have really changed the game for them in terms of leads and sales.
Social networks are an amazing way to reach potential customers that you would otherwise have missed.
But some of you may have started doing some social campaigns on your own, and you are not seeing the kind of results you have heard!
One of the benefits of hiring a social media marketing company is that they know all the tips, tricks and social media rules necessary for your campaign to be effective.
And when we say the rules of social networks, we are not talking about subjective ideas that generally increase the results of a campaign.
We are talking about rules of real social networks: guidelines and advertising policies established by the platform of social networks that advertisers and companies like yours should follow.
By following the so-called “Rule of the thirds” of social networks, you will ensure that you are sharing content that attracts and keeps track of those interested.
What is the rule of the thirds of social networks?
⅓ of its social content promotes its business, converts readers and generates profits.
A third of your social content should come up and share ideas and stories from opinion leaders in your industry or related businesses.
⅓ Your social content should be based on personal interactions and build your personal brand.
Sharing your own brand content should be something natural. It’s the other two thirds that can be a challenge.
Let’s talk about why sharing professional and personal content is equally important.
What is 5: 3: 2?
Social media can play an important role in attracting audiences to your brand, but what do you need to do to get there? What should I be sharing and when?
The key you should not do is talk about yourself all day and every day; This is the sure way to keep people away from your brand.
It’s like that annoying “friend” you have on Facebook who brags all the time, who hides from your timeline or, ultimately, is not your friend.
It does not want to be that brand.
So, what should I be doing? This is where rule 5: 3: 2 comes into play, and it has nothing to do with the rules of football (or soccer, depending on your part of the world).
With regard to social exchange, it is about achieving the right balance, so think about every ten publications:
5 should be content from other sources that are relevant to your audience, also known as healing.
3 must be content that you have created, that is relevant to your audience or creation.
2 must be personal and fun content that humanizes your brand for your audience, to be called humanization.
You will notice that each of these areas has something in common: they are all focused on your audience, not on you.
So let’s dig a little deeper into each one and see how they can attract your audience and what you can do to get the most out of each one.
50% cure
Therefore, most of what you share must be cured from other places and sources that are relevant to your niche and audience.
There is a lot of content out there, take time to read the industry news and be part of the conversation around topics that you know will interest your audience.
Sharing content that is relevant and specific to your industry area will indicate that you are aware. The pulse of what is happening.
Here are some tools to help you quickly customize the content of your social media channels:
Feedly
Storify
Quora
These are not the only healing tools you can use, but they are a starting point.
Remember that everything you post should be useful and shareable; It must also be relevant to your niche and audience.
Creation of 30%
Next, you want to spend some time creating content on your own, try to stay away from difficult sales. If you do, you will undoubtedly see that your list of followers decreases.
Social networks have to do with attracting the audience you want and what you do is valuable content. Try to create varied content as well, as this will keep things interesting for your audience. These types of content could include:
Blogs
Infographics
e-books
Videos
20% humanization
This is what gives life to your brand and shows your audience that you are human and not just a large faceless corporation that tries to sell you.
It’s okay to publish random publications like this if you have the correct balance. The result is likely to be more followers because they will keep coming back to see what other fun things you publish and also to find other useful content.
When sharing this type of content make sure:
It’s the kind of fun your audience likes.
It shows your brand personality
Now that you know the 5: 3: 2 rule and how it can work for your brand, but now you wonder how I can continue to share and publish all this excellent content?
Access a social media management tool, there are many options to help you program, manage and find content, all in one place!
Below is a selection of the main platforms that will be used for the administration of their social networks:
Buffer
HootSuite
TweetDeck
SproutSocial
To help you with the best time to schedule your publications in each social network.
In conclusion,
So there’s the 5: 3: 2 rule for social networks, remember that it’s about your audience and finding a balance in the content you share.
Try not to try to sell all the time and, instead, focus on the content that is valuable, interesting and fun; You want to humanize your brand and make your audience interact with you.
The 80/20 Rule
There is no secret formula to successfully interact with your audience on social networks, but applying the “80/20 Rule” should always be an important part of your social media strategy.
It simply comes down to this: use only 20% of your content to promote your brand, and dedicate 80% to the content that really interests your audience and involve them in conversations.
Do not get me wrong, social networks are definitely a big part of your marketing mix. But because people use social networks to be social, they do not want to be subjected to their online sales pitch.
Always try to create relationships, instead of annoying your audience with irrelevant content and increase your own image.
Because people use social networks to be social, they do not want to be subjected to their online sales pitch.
The year 2018 was marked as “a great year for content”, therefore, content marketing is a really important component of any social media marketing strategy.
Here’s how to apply ‘The 80/20 rule’ to your social media content:
20% of your brand content: include persuasive calls to action
When you work on 20% of the content that deals with your brand, also include information that benefits your audience.
Include a discount, add a special offer, provide useful statistics, etc.
Be sure to integrate a persuasive call to action that will inspire your audience to learn more about your company so it can lead to conversion in the future.
80% of other ‘interesting content’: make it shareable
Dedicating 80% to interesting content that really suits the interests and needs of your audience means compiling content from influential people whose ideas and ideas you agree with.
It supports your way of thinking, the way you do business or what you think is happening in your industry.
Think of retweets, inspirational quotes, links to news, questions, etc.
Just look for content that appeals to your audience and shares it on your social channels.
Put aside your pride and share the content of another company
Why is it so important to share external content with other companies or opinion leaders? It shows your audience that you know the industry like the back of your hand, that you are collegial and aware of the competition.
It shows that it is collaborative and secure enough in its own brand to share the content of another person.
It also doubles your exposure by connecting your content to your audience or online community.
By sharing content from another company, even a competitor, your company is positioned as the best source of content more complete and rounded.
To get content from other companies, try these features:
Find industry influencers: use keyword searches or suggested Twitter user lists to find influential people in your industry. Once you have found them, add them to a list or transmit them to continue listening.
Follow your competition: find your competition or other online related businesses with keyword searches, add them to a list or transmit them and start sharing the good things.
Follow the hashtags and industry keywords: source the hashtags or keywords of your industry and follow them in a sequence to keep them in your backpack. This will help you find new content and know what to include in yours.
Make lists: create lists of influential people, competitors, industry keywords and opinion leaders and keep them in separate sequences for easy listening.
Configure transmissions: multiple transmissions simplify your listening opportunities so you can spend less time searching for excellent content.
Use several styles of Re-Tweet: In HootSuite for example, by selecting “edit” on the Retweet button, you can give your content its own spin. Or, by selecting “Yes”, it simply comes out through its channels with its attached profile. This makes your Twitter feed look more dynamic and shows that you are outsourcing content (something good).
Time to get staff
The personalization in social networks is twofold: build your personal brand in your own channels and be more customizable in your business.
Personal accounts give you the opportunity to share attractive content, create a personal brand around your interests and participate with your followers.
Companies, on the other hand, can learn a lot from personal social accounts. Getting involved with your audience through personal interactions opens your business and shows a more human and vulnerable side.
This could mean sharing the stories of your customers, appreciating your comments or encouraging employees to be brand ambassadors online.
By doing so, you not only recognize your audience, but you also build a committed community.
To listen and participate with your community, try these features:
Trust teams: train your employees to be online ambassadors. They can share and amplify the content of their business, participate in personal conversations with a personal touch and collaborate to respond and receive feedback from fans.
Configure Streams: use streams and tabs to get a quick overview of your activity on social networks. This helps you listen and participate better with your audience.
Find community ambassadors: Suppose you wrote a blog post about your business and a fan had a lot to say in the comments. Contact them to write invited publications or follow them on social networks to get different perspectives.
In Canarias Digital we empower our followers to be ambassadors with a personal touch. We encourage everyone to contribute to the blog and create a professional and personal brand.
This adds new perspectives and exposes Canarias Digital to more diverse audiences. Similarly, our customer service team is encouraged to sign messages with your name. Claudia is our example.
This allows them to have a voice and conduct personal interactions while they are useful.
13 Social Media Rules To Live
Social networks are now a common place in sales, marketing and general business communications.
Unfortunately, some people still do not know how to use social networks in the workplace without having to land in hot water.
Here are the rules, slightly adapted to our social media policy with an extra portion of common sense:
1. DO NOT provide confidential or other information. If there is any question in your mind, err on the side of keeping silent.
2. DO NOT identify yourself by name and, when relevant, your role, when discussing your company or matters related to it.
3. DO NOT write in the first person plural (for example, “we”, “our”). Make it clear that you speak for yourself and not on behalf of your company.
4. BE AWARE that everything you post will be public for a long time, possibly throughout your career.
5. NOT violate the laws of copyright, fair use or disclosure of financial information. When you quote someone, link back to the source if possible.
6. MAKE SURE that your online profiles and related content are consistent with the way you want to present yourself to your colleagues and clients.
7. DO NOT assume that the anonymous publication will keep your true identity secret if you post inappropriate comments and content.
8. Assume personal responsibility for the content you post on blogs, wikis or any other public forum.
9. DO NOT forget that the brand of your company is represented by your people and what you publish will inevitably be reflected in that brand.
10. Make the best effort to add value by providing valuable information and perspective instead of mere opinions and bluffing.
11. DO NOT quote or make reference to the clients, partners or suppliers of the company without their approval. If you do so, you could take your business in legal trouble.
12. Show due consideration for the privacy of others and for sensitivities that may exist with respect to politics and religion.
13. DO NOT use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any online behavior that is not acceptable at work.
In summary, if a brand focuses too much on itself within social networks as a means to increase sales, its audience will see it and disconnect it immediately.
Only by discovering what really interests your audience and responding to those needs will your brand be able to maintain a consistent, sustainable and attractive online social media presence.
Marketing is defined as the activity, set of institutions and processes to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for consumers, customers, partners and society in general.
Or, as the economist Philip Kotler defined it, marketing tries to satisfy the needs of an objective market for a profit.
There are many marketing strategies that can be carried out, but it must be taken into account that marketing is not done in all industries equally.
It is important to consider various factors such as the target audience, the product or service sold or the market position of the company.
Before starting to explain the different strategies that can be carried out, it is important to take into account two concepts: B2B Business and Inbound Marketing.
B2B (business-to-business) refers to transactions between companies, that is, those companies that sell to other companies, and not the final consumer. Therefore B2B marketing will be that which is done from company to company.
On the other hand, the Inbound Marketing or Attraction Marketing is a methodology that coordinates non-intrusive marketing and advertising techniques, with the purpose that the user is the one who finds you, is interested in your product or service, and finally make the transaction.
How can an inbound marketing strategy be implemented in B2B businesses?
First of all, take into account who you are, how you are and what your target customer’s purchasing method is. From this consideration, you will be more prepared to customize and carry out the inbound marketing strategies for your business.
Create quality content
It is proven that quality content generates the most organic search traffic. Creating this type of content is a good way to generate leads and potential customers.
But what should be taken into account to carry out this marketing strategy?
First of all, we must know what our purpose is and who our audience is.
From this, we can define which topics are of interest to them and, therefore, which we are going to talk about.
Who will be responsible for writing the content? Must be a creative person, well informed on the subject and have a rigorous control of the content.
Finally, you must choose the platforms through which this content will be published (blogs, social networks, etc.), define how often it will be published and measure and monitor these campaigns (visualizations, recommendations, etc.) .).
Promote your content
There are many platforms through which to promote the content that the company creates, either from a blog of the company or through social networks.
It is important to stay updated at all times and select well the platforms that will be used. It is not better how many more media you use, if not the quality of these.
Use SEO Techniques
Posicionamiento search engine has revolutionized the way we search for information and purchase goods or services.
The goal of this technique is to appear in the top search positions on Google and be found before your competitors. Because we all know that beyond the first page of Google we do not read.
SEO strategies are very varied, but some of the most important for B2B companies are the following:
The web content is the core work: it is important to have detailed descriptions of products and services, using images and videos, create a predictive web and always give contact details. It is also interesting to insert in your website a click to call or a chatbot to easily contact the potential client, without requiring much effort for him.
Create landing pages to create visitors in registers, that is, create potential clients in real clients. Thanks to these are the attention of the user and that is why it must be optimized to the maximum and should generate interest.
Use the jargon of the area to which you dedicate yourself, either in your own website or in what you publish externally and establish the keywords. Use these and their related in your web and in what you post externally.
Link your social network profiles on your website. They will give you credibility. But you must keep them up-to-date and use the keywords we’ve talked about in these too.
Welcome to my business, LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the most promising social networks today, and above all, very useful for this type of B2B companies. It is the professional network par excellence, where there are profiles of companies, CEOs, senior managers, etc.
The LinkedIn platform is perfect to spread your content to other businesses, as well as attract traffic to your networks, blogs, and websites or make yourself known.
LinkedIn is a machine to generate leads, since in addition to the millions of users that compose it, with a good communication and business strategy in it, many of them can become potential customers for your business.
To do this, you should only make a profile, share, recommend and create content of interest and update it every day. Be an active person, be seen.
An inbound marketing plan for B2B companies is not an easy task. All procedures need their time and a rigorous monitoring and control during and after.
However, companies must adapt to new user purchasing processes, this is no more than integrating new digital processes into their strategies and being up-to-date with the advances that take place every day in the field of marketing.
Selling on the internet involves ant work that never ends. Once you have chosen the platform for your online store, you have customized your theme and created your categories. It’s time to integrate your product pages and optimize them.
This is a key step for the success of your shop. Your product pages are essential to make you want to buy and convert your prospects into customers.
The Essentials To Present The Product
The first step is to present your product in a clear way for both your customers and the search engines. For this, make the most of the essential elements of a product page:
The title :
We must be careful to always have an optimized title for SEO and that it is clear for the visitor.
The images :
The photos must be homogeneous with each other. Try to have the same background for each product, or that the atmosphere is consistent.
Remember to publish several pictures of the same product in different situations and in different points of view.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never seen the product. Show the texture, size and colors closest to the real.
The descriptions :
In general, you must write two descriptions: a short that can be taken by Google to display in the search results and a longer text to better describe the product. Even if this step may seem tiring and tedious, do not neglect it! On one side the search engines like the content, and on the other side, your potential customer wants to have all the information about the product. You can describe its shape, its material, give ideas for its use, talk about its manufacture…
The technical sheet :
In some cases, data sheets, or maintenance tips, or use may complete your product sheet.
The price :
Do not forget to display the price including VAT if you sell to private individuals, in a clear and visible way.
Reassure Your Customers
The above information is essential for presenting your products. Your page can be supplemented by various elements that will reassure visitors before moving on to the purchase.
Although these elements can be displayed in other pages, their presence on the product page can be a trigger of trust and convince the user to add the product in his basket. Among these elements of trust we can find:
Declinations: show the different sizes or colors of your product. Be careful not to propose more than three.
The stock available: inform your customers about the availability of the product, it is nothing more frustrating than receiving an email to indicate that the item purchased is out of stock.
The opinions: give the floor to your customers, good advice will reassure future buyers.
Fees and delivery time: avoid a cart abandonment at the end of the conversion tunnel, be clear from the beginning.
Means of payment: demonstrate that you offer a secure payment.
Call To Action
Do not leave the user blocked on a product sheet, give him ideas to continue to discover other products:
Similar products: at the end of your product page you can submit products of the same category that might interest him.
Complementary products: a t-shirt that goes well with the proposed jeans, wax to clean the pair of shoes proposed…
As you can see, the creation of a product page needs to be thought through and worked on. The biggest challenge is to multiply this work by the number of different items you have.
But it is essential to have clear and attractive product sheets, a little for search engines but mainly for converting your visitors into customers.
Social selling is an approach that relies on social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in particular) to identify potential prospects, connect with them, and bring them value by distributing qualified information without selling.
The Social selling is not just to create profiles on social networks. It goes further! It’s a process of researching, selecting, listening to and exchanging with potential prospects on social networks to generate opportunities and accelerate the sales cycle.
What Are The Objectives Of Social Selling?
Detect signals (job offers, search for partners, search for service providers …)
Promote the expertise of the company and its employees through the production and publication of content.
Social listening to better understand the needs of the targets.
Keep watch on posts posted on social networks, and exchange
Perform interactions on social networks (recommendations, likes, comments, sharing, congratulations …).
Connect with decision-makers via social networks.
The 4 C Of Social Selling
4 C, the 4 keys to building an effective social selling strategy.
Contact: Build your network and address book according to the priority targets and networks on which the targets are present: 74% of the decision-makers are on LinkedIn and 42% on Twitter.
Context: Learn to know the prospects (persona), study their needs, the themes that interest them to be able to respond precisely to the expectations of different targets by providing them with appropriate content.
Content: Broadcast relevant content on the right social networks, at the right time. 65% of BtoB buyers indicate that content marketing has a significant impact on their purchase.
Conversion: Create an exchange, a discussion with the prospect to enter a relationship of trust to convert it into a customer. Offer an exchange by telephone or an appointment to study their needs and provide appropriate solutions.
Why Develop A Social Selling Approach?
Before becoming a customer, your prospect will go through different stages between the moment he finds a need and the one where he makes the decision to buy, this is the purchase journey.
Buyers are now hyperconnected. They spend their time on the web and social networks and are constantly looking for information on products, services or brands that interest them.
They have gone from consumers to consumers. They do not need sellers anymore. They know more about the product they want to buy than the seller himself. When they decide to meet a seller, they already have a great knowledge of the market and products.
In BtoB, 92% of buyers start with a search on Google, and 75% use social networks, including LinkedIn. Professionals seek information and content targeted to their interests and issues.
If you or your brand is not present during the shopping journey of your targets on the internet, you are unlikely to be identified as a potential provider.
Social selling is no longer an option because your company has to adapt to the 3 phases of the buying process by providing more service, more value and developing a relationship with its customers.
The Prospect Buying Path
During thediscovery phase: the client begins to worry about his problem or need and to take an interest in the idea of solving it. At this point, you must provide information by creating content tailored to the keywords searched on the web.
During the stage consideration: the customer does not know yet how it will solve their need, but he devoted himself to research products or services that will allow him to solve it. At this stage, the challenge is to help the customer find the right solution and evaluate them.
During theDecision Phase: At this point, the client has selected the different options available to him. The challenge is to position yourself as an expert to reassure the customer that choosing your product or service is the right solution.
For this, your website and your social networks are a major social selling tool because you can communicate, share content, and interact with your target prospects to promote the sales process.
However without a marketing strategy with a production of quality content, you will have trouble developing your social selling approach to your prospects on social networks.
Social selling relies on inbound marketing and content marketing to communicate, and connect with customers and prospects without selling. What social selling strategy to be effective?
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a strategy that consists of:
Attract Internet users with a website optimized for content and SEO.
Turn visitors into prospects with free content to download.
Convert leads to customers with a marketing automation strategy.
Retain customers to become ambassadors of the brand.
Companies that have adopted inbound marketing generate 54% more leads than traditional methods.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the heart of inbound marketing.
Its goal is to create and distribute free, qualitative, creative and relevant content intended for its targets in order to touch it, engage it in a relationship and turn it into a prospect and then customers.
Quality content is content that does not speak for itself. To impact your audience, your content must solve a problem, hence the importance of knowing your targets better to meet them.
And to know your targets, you will use the technique of buyers personas: it is about creating the typical profiles of your ideal customers centered on their needs, their challenges, their brakes, and their motivations. In a process of social selling, the profiles of your buyers’ personas will allow designing a content strategy that will be attractive and shared on social networks to connect with your targets.
Which formats for your editorial strategy?
The blog article
Images and photos
Videos
Computer graphics
The case study
The white paper
The webinar
The video will be the preferred format because it is content consumed by Internet users, and it allows to interact with prospects in a simple and powerful.
Which Social Networks To choose In Social Selling?
75% of Internet users are present on social networks. The choice to deploy a social selling strategy will depend on the sector of activity and the uses of the targets.
Each social network has its uses, and we do not communicate in the same way on Facebook and LinkedIn for example. It will be a question of adapting the contents, and the tone according to the targets.
The goal is to share engaging content and generate interactions to engage targets and conversation. You have to be social on social networks and have a relevant presence.
LinkedIn
It is the reference professional network, and the most suitable for social selling in BtoB and generates leads through targeting features for digital prospecting.
Twitter
BtoB or BtoC is the social network of the snapshot. It is adapted to social selling especially on niche communities, or influencers and opinion leaders. Prospects are responsive on Twitter. You have to be very active on Twitter because there are so many tweets, and you have to stand out to be visible.
Facebook
It is the most widely used social network in the world, and prospects are necessarily there. Nevertheless, it is a network especially adapted to a BtoC target. To practice social selling on Facebook, you will need to contact a different professional profile than a personal profile.
The communication on Facebook works well with publications on the employer brand of the company to make you want to join. It is not easy to develop a community in BtoB or with small business targets.
The visibility of company pages becoming increasingly weak on Facebook, it is necessary to communicate via a private Facebook group with content adapted to the expectations of the audience.
How To Be A Perfect Social Seller On Social Networks
Well used social networks are strong levers to engage prospects with a tailored and personalized speech.
Social selling is above all a position of expertise and credibility to establish relationships of trust with prospects. We do not sell on social networks, we socialize! The philosophy of social selling: “Stop selling, start by helping”.
A mere presence on social networks will be insufficient to have an impact on sales. It’s actions and interactions that will turn engagement into sales.
The perfect social seller knows how to “listen to customers” on social networks to meet their expectations. He is alert on the needs to show his expertise, and get in touch with them more easily.
Being a perfect social seller
To learn about the particularities of social networks
Social networks do not all have the same uses and the same codes. Understanding their operation is essential.
Be active to be visible and capture prospects
Build your personal brand and put your profile forward by multiplying content publishing and sharing. You have to show yourself on social networks to make yourself visible. It’s a way to work on personal branding and to heal your e-reputation.
Engage with prospects
The first step is to know the prospects before they become customers.
Start by following the target leads on social networks.
Identify their interests as well as the people with whom they engage.
Like or comment on their contents.
The second step will be to approach them with a speech adapted to their stage of maturity of purchase and to convert them into a buyer.
Put In Place An Effective Social Selling Strategy
Before you start social selling, think about your strategy:
What are your goals?
Who are your buyers’ personas?
What are their expectations, their needs?
What content to produce with which format?
Which are the social networks adapted to your strategy?
What messages to send to your prospects?
What indicators to follow to measure your actions?
Defining all these elements will allow you to have a clear and precise way to reach your goals with social selling.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM? Which is more important? What does each one work for? These are some of the most common questions from users who start to optimize their search engine web.
In this post, we answer them and explain how to get your website to reach the top of Google, either through SEO, SEM or the combination of both.
SEO – Online Success Through Organic Positioning
The acronym SEO refers to the optimization of websites for search engines such as Google. That is, work a website so that it is perceived positively by Google and other search engines. If you want to perform effective optimization you will have to pay special attention to the content, structure, and metadata of your website. In addition, there are other disciplines within the organic positioning such as local SEO or link building that will help you get better rankings. This is an essential technique for any website that wants to achieve online success and ensure it in the long term.
SEM – Online Success Through Paid Positioning
The acronym SEM refers to search engine marketing, which is synonymous with improving the positions of a website in the search results Google and other search engines through payment strategies.
One of the most known strategies within the SEM are Adwords. These are ads that Google places in the top positions of its search results, recommending websites of companies that have paid an amount of money to appear in said place. This is a technique that seeks to achieve online success in the short term and fully compatible with SEO
SEO And SEM, Better By The Hand
While we have seen that both are different disciplines, they are also complimentary. While SEO will offer you lasting results, the SEM can give you an initial boost.
However, keep in mind that investing in SEM without having a website that interests your visitors, may be wasting your budget. Therefore, it is always recommended that SEO and SEM go hand in hand.
Keep in mind that an ideal online marketing strategy should be distributed in figures of around 25% SEM – 75% SEO.
These are especially interesting since analyzing the behavior of your Adwords will help you modify certain aspects to achieve online success.
