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It’s no secret that using social-selling techniques and strategies with LinkedIn and other social platforms is quickly becoming the norm nowadays in attracting B2B sales prospects. You really can’t get around not using social selling in B2B sales anymore, especially when you consider:
- 67% of the B2B buyer’s journey is now done digitally — before they even contact a sales rep (SiriusDecisions)
- 84% of C-level executives use social media to make purchasing choices (Bambu)
- 14 industry categories see more than 50% of revenue being influenced by social selling (LinkedIn)
In using LinkedIn and social selling for all of your efforts to attract B2B sales prospects, your goal is a simple one: securing more phone calls and meetings with the buyers you are targeting. While the goal itself is straightforward, your road to getting there may seem complicated.
This is where my Attraction Pyramid strategy can help. It provides a direct path for your B2B sales prospects to follow based on your LinkedIn activities, so you can ultimately set those meetings.
I’ve set up the pyramid like a sales funnel, as you will likely have viewers fall out of it similarly to prospects exiting a funnel. As they move through this funnel, though, their interest will grow as they discover more about both you and your offering(s).
Stage 1: Effectively Use Your LinkedIn “Shadow”
When you post content, you’ll show up in the LinkedIn newsfeeds of your 1st-degree connections. You’ll extend your influence wider when you like, comment on or share material from your 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections, as you’ll appear in their feeds as well.
Your appearances in their feeds will generate what I call your LinkedIn “Shadow” (left), which is what users will see when they mouse over your name or photo. Your Shadow includes a professional photo of yourself and a headline that’s written in a way where you show who you help and how you can help them. They can then click through to your profile.
To get people in your Attraction Funnel, though, you need to be proactive by posting your own shares, as well as liking, commenting on and sharing the content of others. The more you take these actions, the more your name will pop up in other people’s feeds so that they can mouse over it to click through to your profile.
Stage 2: Prove It to Your B2B Sales Prospects Above the Fold
After they’ve clicked through, you start providing value by what’s “above the fold,” or in your main Intro box:
Your headline and photo are already here but you’ll add value by, among other things, adding a background (also called a banner) at the very top of your above-the-fold section.
My background, for example, tells what I do visually with logos and icons. I’ve included a corporate logo, logos of the social networks we teach, and social-oriented icons. The banner, combined with what’s in the rest of the copy there, reinforces our LinkedIn and social selling-related services.
The ultimate goal in this stage is to have them click into your summary.
Stage 3: Address Challenges and Provide Solutions in Your Summary
This stage starts with enticing your viewer to read your summary by clicking on “Show more ⌄” by using a “call to read” as the very first line of your summary. We’ve found that writing an all-caps call to read line that promises something of value is the best way to accomplish this goal. In my summary, for example, I have “LEARN TOP LINKEDIN & SOCIAL SELLING STRATEGIES ►”. As I’ve already attracted the viewer this far, I’m assuming they want to learn more about this topic and will click to learn about it.
The rest of my summary involves detailing the challenges my potential buyers have, some vendor-agnostic tips and value insights, and how we can help them solve their problem.
At the end of your summary, you need to provide your B2B sales prospects with a path to what the next step of the process. Do this by including a call-to-action (CTA). In my summary, I offer a chance to speak with someone during a 15-minute call that promises more actionable insights about LinkedIn and social selling. The link goes to an online calendar where they can schedule a call without emailing me first. I also include my email address, in case they want to reach out directly to me without booking a call. You may want to include a phone number there, too.
I also recommend including “proof” of who you are and what you do in the Media area of the Intro section. You can upload content like eBooks and case studies, link to external Websites, and much more.
By thinking of your B2B sales prospects’ journey in the context of the Attraction Pyramid, you can lead them to your ultimate goal in all of social selling: starting sales-related conversations.
Want to learn more? Schedule a call with me!
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.
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