Who are the leading Technical and Commercial digital influencers in your sector?

Who are the leading Technical and Commercial digital influencers in your sector?

 

As modern buying motions move to digital it’s important that we take this question seriously and that we aim to be the answer.

Gartner’s Future of Sales research shows that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. This is because 33% of all buyers desire a seller-free sales experience – a preference that climbs to 44% for millennials.

Remember, this is across sector, this is relevant to all of us who rely on selling products and services to other businesses.

Our research has found commonality in the basic aims of any business we have worked with, across all sectors.

Over the last few years, we’ve collated enough data to be able to condense this down in to 4 key areas that every business wants:

Access to target markets
Credibility in those markets  
Meaningful connection with prospects
Commercial Interaction

These 4 basic requirements are the roots of all B2B business success and in 2022 this is anchored in how we use Social Media.

Now more than ever, it’s time to put a digital first strategy in place and that means you and your team becoming expert in Social Selling & Influence on Social Media.

Social Selling & Influence is about mobilising your team’s presence and behaviour on Social Media to build influence, make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to conversations, commercial interaction, and growth.

All of this must be tethered to commercial interaction and growth.  Every keystroke that you and your team make on social media should be anchored in strategy, speak to a defined financial outcome, and be linked to its attribution in pipeline. We must be able to link all we are doing in marketing to an attribution in our pipeline and Social Selling & Influence is the leading measure.

In the past, large companies held the advantage in marketing…. they could afford to spend more money so they would scoop up all the prime advertising space, have the biggest stand the show and appear in the centre features of every important trade journal.

Times have changed…. People are winning the battle of the brands and they are doing it on Social Media.

This means if you and your colleagues are being smarter with Social Media, you can and will take ownership of the digital share of voice in your sectors.

It all starts with a strategy.

We set a strategy that builds you and the team towards a position of digital dominance. We outline the barriers and the levers, we highlight the assets, and we create a Social Media mission for the team.
We optimise the profiles of the team. This means their profiles will be buyer centric and digitally optimised, they will have profiles that are working for them when they are asleep.

Then we start growing your network.

Connecting and building relationships with key people – we do this at scale and with strategy…another step up.

Then we build in influence. Creating rich and diverse content which educates, inspires, challenges and entertain our growing network and engage in conversation with key people.  All of you are doing this, not just the marketing or salespeople…the whole team.

The 2021 LinkedIn-Edelman B2B thought leadership impact report is an excellent report which saw Edelman and LinkedIn collaborate on the fourth annual B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study to examine how thought leadership influences perception and buying behaviours among B2B decision-makers (link below).

The report says…

“64% of buyers say that and organisation thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competency than its marketing materials and products sheets”.

It goes on to say…

“63% of buyers also say that thought leadership is important in providing proof that an organisation genuinely understands or can solve your business challenges”.

Your buyers want your team’s thought leadership, we can’t hope to achieve this level of connection and qualification with brochures and flyers.

This needs new thinking and a new approach.

You start to take control of the digital narrative in your chosen sectors – We call this ‘Digital Dominance’.
This is about affecting real a real business transformation, to make a valuable, measurable, and scalable contribution to the revenue and ebitda profile of your business, we need habits and behaviours to change.  

We need new process, new language, a new framework, new thinking, and new action.

It all starts to build:

Qualified relevance – Your marketplace recognises and your team.
Trusted advisor status – You are recognised as experts.
Pipeline, growth & inbound – More opportunities.
Recruitment opportunities – People want to work with Social organisations.

A significant difference we see with companies who are Social Selling & Influence is the whole team approach. 

The whole team creating influence and connecting with people who can buy your products or services, people who can influence an engagement and people who can amplify your message.
The results?  Increased pipeline and reduced costs…and all of that whilst eating into the market share of your competitors.

In 2022 its important you give your team all the digital skills they need to network, protect, and close business online, regardless of your sector.

Published: 08-03-2022