30 Jun |
Customer Referrals Act as CRM Catalysts across Social Media |
 |
Nurture existing customers in CRM with social media to get repeat and referral business One happy customer is worth a hundred (or more) in your CRM system. Sounds like a cliché? Well, maybe; but it’s one of those eternal truths which, if you believe in and remember, will take you a long way down the road of successful customer relationship management. It’s easy to pour enthusiasm, effort, ideas (and money!) into B2B lead generation because there is that gleaming pot of gold to aim for – revenue and profits. But the repeat and referral business you can get from existing customers is worth much more. Tap into the power of customer referrals via social media and you have an armoury of silver bullets, not snake oil. To nurture your existing customers, consider using social media and online marketing tools like: Customer case studies on a blog Video testimonials Social media recommendations from customers, associates, partners and suppliers An online product demonstration via YouTube – for new and potential customers A Q&A forum where queries are answered by your company and your long standing customers “Listen” to what existing customers are saying about your
Read more...28 Jun |
Social Media Fuels the B2B Lead Lifecycle – CRM Update is Critical! |
|
Social media plays an important role in the sales cycle, but keeping your CRM database is key No matter how many budget cuts your organization introduces to cope with challenging times, you somehow make room for B2B lead generation expenses. It is after all, the lifeline of your sales performance, right? The only change to this ongoing situation is the dire need to measure and quantify results, so not a penny goes to waste. The results of B2B lead generation are best measured by the end goal, i.e. a customer conversion. For a B2B interaction to progress from seed to lead to sale, it must traverse through the phase of opportunity nurturing — the time when a prospective customer actually begins direct interaction with a company’s sales representative. It is typically the time when a lead is comparison shopping, checking out references and testimonials, conducting due diligence about the sellers’ products and services, and, engaging in social media conversations to find out more! Close coordination between your marketing and sales team, via the CRM and other formal / informal internal communications methods is paramount to nurturing sales opportunities. Being in the
Read more...24 Jun |
How Social Media Can Augment Your CRM Effectiveness |
|
In my last post I introduced the subject about social media and CRM working together for B2B lead generation. Continuing in this series, here is today’s tip on how social media can be leveraged to augment your CRM effectiveness: Practice active listening with your social media conversations. Quite simply, lead nurturing is the process of informing, educating and encouraging potential customers about your product or service through healthy and positive relationship building. The keyword here is “relationship” – and just like any relationship, B2B relationships are also built and strengthened via communication. Of course, email marketing and sales meetings give you the opportunity to cast your net, stay in touch and add momentum to your sales pitch. But listening and taking positive action based on social media interactions with prospects offers a great way to enrich your “fertile” CRM grounds. These “voices” on the web can tell you a lot about your prospects’ needs and expectations. Armed with these insights, you can enhance your offering and make necessary adjustments to your online and offline marketing materials. You’ll be ready to go to market
Read more...21 Jun |
Social Media and CRM working together for better lead generation |
|
At the recently concluded Internet Week in New York, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) hosted a panel discussion on social media and its impact on CRM. The resounding message from the expert panellists, all big names in the advertising and marketing industry, was that sales and online conversations (a.k.a. social media) are now inseparable and must go hand in hand. The essence of B2B lead generation has always been to help a brand find entry into the minds of customers. Planned or unplanned, orchestrated or inadvertently, brands are entering the customer mindset via social media channels. Businesses that recognize this and make efforts to take control of this process will emerge as the biggest winners in CRM profitability. Today’s quick tip on how to use social media to improve your CRM for lead generation: Make your social media channels fertile ground for finding leads. On your company website, your B2B lead generation efforts are ideally tied to a specific call to action and information gathering process that feeds your CRM database. In an online social community, however, there are potential B2B leads that you may not be aware of; yet these can become your biggest
Read more...19 May |
Social Media Success Won’t Fix a Broken Sales Funnel |
|
If you are a B2B marketer looking to use social media as a way to generate more sales leads, by all means test and experiment with it. However, first be sure that your CRM and lead handling systems are working properly. Otherwise, you will only make a bad situation worse. All leads should be qualified and nurtured A lot of social media gurus are telling us that, since social media is different, its success should be measured differently. This is complete nonsense. Whether you generate inquiries from social or “conventional” media, they should all be treated the same way and measured with the same metric. In practice, this means: Qualify every lead— before you pass it on to your sales people for follow-up, no matter where the lead came from. Leads that aren’t ready for follow-up should be nurtured until they are. Track and source conversions accurately— This is especially important when using social media, because its “free” nature can make any leads it generates look far less expensive than inquiries generated from “paid” sources. However, this can be especially misleading with social media because you can’t always control where and to whom your message
Read more...10 May |
A Humorous Look at Social Media |
|
I am off to the B2B Summit in Phoenix, Arizona and while I am gone, I thought you would enjoy this short video that we put together.
Read more...04 May |
Social Media for Demand Generation….Is it more of a B2C than a B2B phenomenon? |
|
My most recent post on social media’s pros and cons drew a lot of feedback. So, I thought we should continue the “conversation” by offering a few more opinions from this admittedly old-school but open minded marketing professional about the value (or lack thereof) of social media as a demand generation medium. As always, I welcome your continued comments. Better for Small B2C Marketers? If you look at the biggest and most successful users of Twitter and Facebook, they seem to be B2C marketers. For example, Starbucks (@Starbucks) and Zappos (@Zappos) are using Twitter apparently to not only engage consumers with their brand but also to drive direct sales and distribute promotional discounts. Now, it turns out that small businesses (B2C) have also jumped on the Twitter bandwagon in a big way. From pizza parlors to independent and specialty retailers, small businesses are increasingly using Twitter to publicize special discounts and promotions and solicit customer feedback and many report they are quite happy with the results. From my perspective, Twitter as a marketing tool actually makes perfect sense for small businesses two reasons: (1) they have limited ad budgets,
Read more...26 Apr |
Social Media for Demand Generation: Silver Bullet or Snake Oil? |
|
Social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter are revolutionizing the way companies market their products and services— or, at least, that’s what the internet marketing consultants, evangelists, gurus, and camp followers have been preaching to us for about two years now. What’s the reality behind the hype? Should social media be an integral part of your demand generation campaigns? Is it producing significant, measurable ROI for anybody out there? Let me know your real-world experiences at lfoong [at] thealeagroup.com. Debunking the Famous Dell Case Study Yes, like you, I’ve read the much-circulated Dell case study where they used Twitter to generate $3 million in sales by offering exclusive discounts to the 11,844 people who follow @DellOutlet. As an experienced (and skeptical) demand generation practitioner, I have two problems with this: 1) it’s literally a drop in the bucket of Dell’s $51 billion annual sales volume (about 0.005%). 2) Dell isn’t necessarily generating new business here. In fact, you can argue that they are cannibalizing direct sales (and profits) with the extra discounts. To be fair, let’s admit that social media is new and evolving.
Read more...
