Technology decision-makers use online resources such as community sites and social networks to make buying decisions more than ever. They read product reviews from real users, engage in online discussions, and connect with other actual users.
Here’s a comparison of how the era of marketing campaigns will fade away:
2012: We have an e-book people may be interested in, so we send it out as part of a campaign. Results: We get a list of contacts for sales to call until the list is depleted.
2013: We join in real-time conversations where marketers know the person already is interested and then use tools to monitor social media and become aware of what’s in the news in general. Results: We find out what people are talking about online and offer a solution.
Hybrid marketing
Traditional marketing campaigns now give way to a more real-time focus on getting maximum exposure through online social media. Becoming more real-time means adding to the mix tools such as:
Increasingly popular B2B online review sites in which B2B customers write product reviews, just as we do as consumers for electronics, hotels, and restaurants, on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor.
Engaging in discussions happening now about your products. These are taking place in LinkedIn groups and other social media channels.
Responding to customers in community sites, whether they are “on-brand” (hosted by your company) or “off-brand" (hosted by a partner).
As you can see, Forrester found the top types of content that buyers look for are peer experiences and product reviews. Expert opinions come in behind them at number three.
Sources of Influence
B2B social marketing key points
The strategy for B2B social marketing requires a few shifts in the traditional marketing of the past.
Spend time focusing on the right networks and communities where you can find users discussing your products and services.
Focus on reaching prospects when they are genuinely interested in your products. That means less spamming them and more engaging in the discussions they start and the questions they ask.
However, do not abandon some of the customer relationship management processes you already have in place. You still need to leverage email campaigns, track contacts, and facilitate your marketing processes.
Focusing more toward online social media leverages more value for stakeholders.
Vendors: Getting secure customer testimonials for their products, vendors can influence high-quality prospects that are in the buying process. Input from current users helps in the planning process.
Prospects: Prospects find others who have already completed the selection process and get unbiased information from real users. They can create a vendor short list pretty quickly and easily.
Customers: Customers evangelize products that have helped them succeed and can be seen as thought leaders to help peers. They also network with other professionals in their vertical markets.
Joining online communities puts you in a perfect situation to have real-time engagement with the users of your products and competitors -- helping you to better distinguish between prospects who are ready to make a decision and those who might need more information about how your product fits their needs.
— Russell Rothstein is co-founder and CEO of IT Central Station. Follow him on Twitter @RussRothsteinIT.
There's a really neat tool from a startup called Oktopost www.oktopost.com that does the integration between social media and CRM. They've provide turnkey integration straight from twitter/LinkedIn/FB with salesforce.com. I think these kind of integrations between social media and CRM are critical.
That will be a significant development in efforts to monitor conversion rates from initial contact with a prospective customer and actual sales being made. Was wondering how a web-based feedback or a discussion (on social network) will be uploaded on a non-web-based CRM with reference to a specific customer.
True. Though the task of responding to complaints should be delegated to a specific function like sales department but it should be not be confined to them. How about company's CEO or Sales VP responding personally (obviously not frequently) to complaints of customers. This would be an ideal example of leading from the front and imagine the enhancement of brand image due to small contributions like these from the leadership.
WaqasAltaf and magneticnorth: I don't believe that social has to change the nature of handoff between marketing and sales. Marketing is still responsible for bringing in leads (through awareness, but also sometimes directly via lead gen) and then sales takes over from there.
My point that marketing needs to be "sales oriented" with its social media activities, is that there needs to be greater focus on ensuring that time and money spent on social media delivers leads to sales - not necessarily *more* leads, as a I think social media can be effective in increasing the *quality* of leads even if relative numbers are not high (which is the case in B2B in many cases). But marketing's eye should always be on how the investment in social media improves the funnel.
As the market matures, we'll see greater integration between social media and CRM systems so you can track the source of a sale back to a particular tweet or LinkedIn post.
WaqasAltaf: so true. A company that replies to user reviews easily gets plus points in my book. Openness is something we value greatly these days, and being open to receiving complaints is a major thing.
Russell: that depends on the company. I've seen B2B companies with sales departments that are more mature than their marketing departments, especially in terms of training and funding.
My B2B clients have very small marketing departments, who'll surely be overwhelmed by all that work. But they do have huge sales departments with people hungry for new accounts. I think the key to making the above feasible for my clients is sales training on online marketing. That way, the marketing department simply guides everyone while the commission-based sales people do the legwork.
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