Au Contraire eMarketer: Social Media Does Impact the B2B Sales Process
In today’s edition of eMarketer there is an article stating that most business to business referrals from social sites are uninterested in products and services. The article, however, goes on to state that visitors from Facebook were most likely to check out a company’s “about” page or blog posts. As a B2B services marketer those are exactly the desired effects of social media that feed our sales process. While it would be great if potential clients saw something we posted on Twitter , LinkedIn , or Facebook and rushed to buy a project from my firm, the reality is that our sales process is not short or direct. Our value proposition is made up of the smarts, personalities, and creativity of our people and our sales cycle can take months (and occasionally years.) Barring the rare immediate project opportunity, our goal is to drive prospects to the elements of our site that let us different ourselves – the blog, the about us, the leadership team, etc. and encourage prospects to contact ...