Social Selling Doesn’t Stop When the Opportunity Is Closed and Won
When sales leaders discuss social selling, they tend to associate it with prospecting and acquiring new customers. But social selling doesn’t stop with the sale.
Think of social selling as another touch point as your sales reps manage their accounts. When an opportunity is closed and won, the lines of communication are anything but closed, and for account executives, networks like Twitter and LinkedIn are fantastic ways to keep customers interested and grow the lifetime value of their accounts.
Let’s take a look at a couple of customer nurturing campaigns that can be enhanced by social.
Sample Customer Campaign #1: Onboarding Customers
Onboarding is a crucial step in a customer’s journey. Those initial interactions set the tone for the rest of your engagements with an account. You can help guarantee success by educating your customers early on after their first purchase.
Granted, each company has a different onboarding process, so we can’t tell you exactly how to work social into your onboarding process. Use the following example for a CRM sales rep as inspiration for your own sales team.
Touch 1: Sales rep connects with key stakeholders on the account on LinkedIn. Sales rep also follows key stakeholders on Twitter. A rep should try to connect with several people at the company, especially if they’re working with an enterprise account.
Ongoing Basis:Sales rep shares company-created content, industry news, and thought leadership posts so that the rep continues to provide value, albeit more passively, to the customer.
Touch 2: Sales rep sends tweet that includes tips for someone’s first 90 days using CRM. Tag one of the key stakeholders in the tweet.
Touch 3: Sales rep sends email that invites the stakeholders to join your customer community.
Touch 4: Customer service check-in call.
Touch 5: Soon after the check-in call, sales rep comments on relevant Twitter and LinkedIn posts of customers. This further establishes the rep’s knowledge about the space, and it gives the rep the opportunity to reassure any stakeholders who might be experiencing buyer’s remorse.
Touch 6: Rep sends a private LinkedIn message or email to the customer, inviting them to a local event that your company is hosting.
Sample Customer Campaign Example #2: Cross-Sell
Cross-selling can be help establish long-lasting relationships with customers. In the commercial Financial Services industry, for example, there’s a strong correlation between customer satisfaction and the number of products a customer uses.
As a result, many commercial banks are trying to master the art of the cross-sell, and you guessed it: Social selling can help with that.
Let’s say that you’re trying to sell investment advisory services to existing customers, but you’re not exactly sure who would be a good candidate. Here are two ways that you can identify potential cross-sell opportunities.
Option 1: Social Listening
On an ongoing basis, sales reps should monitor their customers’ social activity on Twitter and LinkedIn. Some people use social media as a way to crowd-source knowledge about products and services. If reps notice that a customer is actively tweeting about investment advisory services, they’ve found an easy way to open a discussion.
Option 2: Send out Feelers
As sales reps know, opportunities don’t always fall into their laps. Reps might need more proactive approaches. Here’s an idea that you can try:
Touch 1: On Twitter and LinkedIn, a rep shares a piece of industry news about investment advisory services. The rep takes note of which customers like, favorite, or comment on the piece of content. (Reps should be connected with your customers!) Then, the rep follows up with those customers who engaged with the post. They’ve given the rep the opportunity to strike up a conversation.
Touch 2: A few days later, the rep shares a customer success story related to the company’s investment advisory services. Once again, the rep takes note of which customers like, favorite, or comment on the piece of content. Then, the rep follows up with those customers. By posting on a different day, the rep may attract the attention of customers who didn’t see the first post.
Keep in Mind: This tactic will only work if the rep has taken the time to build a strong social media presence and has cultivated relationships with current customers via social.
Ready to Start?
Customer nurturing is an area that is often overlooked in social selling. However, it is a fantastic touch point as you onboard new customers, educate them, and extend their lifetime value. Email and phone aren’t the only ways for sales reps to interact with their current customers.