I will start with this. If you are a SaaS startup with your target audience being enterprises, and you’re looking to scale your sales, you MUST be doing social selling.
Social Selling is one of the most effective ways to scale your sales efforts. I came across this prolific selling tactic when I was working as a Growth professional in an AI-based SaaS startup. I was brought in to handle our growth efforts in the US.
We were targeting enterprises. When I say that, I mean companies like HDFC Bank, Nestle, etc. Yes, huge MNCs dominating the global markets.
My manager asked me to look into social selling on LinkedIn and said: “It’ll help us to grow in no-time!”. It did. Four weeks in, we were able to set up 5 in-person meetings with VPs from companies like the Silicon Valley Bank (aka SVB). Now, if you have ever worked in an enterprise company, in a growth role, you’d know that it’s a BIG deal.
Having worked with 15+ SaaS companies in various capacities over the past four years, SaaS startups are reluctant to even start with social selling, let alone set up a full-fledged function in their Growth department.
Why? Well, I can think of a few reasons:
- It’s a lot of work. You need to post account-based articles, ask your employees to share stuff, regularly follow your prospects, etc.
- It doesn’t yield instant results. Unlike running an ad campaign or setting up a lead magnet, social selling takes time to develop.
- People don’t understand it. Social selling lies at the border of marketing and sales. Hence, coordination from both teams is of paramount importance.
That being said, if you can somehow overcome these hurdles, you won’t look back. Now, why am I babbling about this?
Take a look at the top 5 reasons as to why you should get started with social selling ASAP!
- It’s fast. Let’s face it. Selling to enterprises is a long and arduous journey. Social selling is considered to be one of the quickest techniques to sell to enterprises. In my experience, with social selling you can expect to reduce your time to get to a demo by up to 70%.
- Customers are already there. It is already known that 75% of the enterprise companies have made social media verification as a part of their purchasing process. Hence, it makes sense for a SaaS startup, who is targeting enterprises, to have a good presence – updated social profiles, participate in relevant discussions and threads, follow prospects, etc.
- Customer engagement is easier. Growth professionals have repeatedly mentioned that social selling helps them develop a much deeper relationship with their prospects. Reece Lyons, founder/CEO of Treefort, a simple SaaS product to collect user feedback, notes that “LinkedIn social selling has helped us engage with multi-million dollar enterprises which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible via email or calls.”
- Customer research simplified. Your prospects are already hanging out on social media, posting their likes and dislikes openly. There can’t be a better source to know what goes on your customer’s mind than social media.
- Build industry authority. Inherently, humans trust a company when there’s a lot of buzz on social media. Social selling allows you to build authority in your industry and create much-needed buzz. This makes selling to your audience much easier as they’re already aware of your company; in other words, social selling aids brand recall to a great extent.
Now that you know the insider story on social selling, would you try it out? If you do, don’t forget to comment here and tell me how it went.
Also, the key to social selling is to be consistent. Don’t give up on the 1st month with the excuse that it’s not working. The chances are that it won’t. Keep at it, and you will succeed!