Entrepreneurs and use of social media

Bankole Adedeji
| credits: File copy

The use of social media as a sales and marketing tool is no doubt gaining prominence worldwide. Organisations want to sell as much volume of product as they produce. Who doesn’t want to make money? The sales and marketing team of any organisation is its engine room.

Remove the sales and marketing division of an organisation and you may have succeeded in killing it. Some are production-oriented; others are sales and marketing-oriented. As a marketing expert, I’m of the opinion that a perfect mix of sales and marketing orientation with a touch of the digital media in an organisation will yield the most desired results.

Sales orientation is based on the ideas that people will buy more goods and services if certain techniques are implemented. Marketing orientation, on the other hand, is a simple approach, whose premise is based on satisfaction of customer want and needs.

Imagine a production-focused organisation with no proper plan of how it would market and sell its products. It is doomed! Having the right products is one thing, selling the products is a different ball game and today’s sales and marketing people have more work to do. The market is saturated. Consumers are exposed to more choices and chances that they will patronise you are slim. So what do you do?

•Let your marketing team go social.

•Carry out more consumers need audit.

•Do more market intelligence using social media.

•Ask more questions from your customers, especially on social media.

Smart organisations are beginning to use new approaches to get their customers through social media. Social media help organisations and their executives to break old communication barriers. In a recent study, it was revealed that sales people that employ social media on the job perform better than their peers by a whopping 73 per cent. Here are some points that could be of tremendous help:

Social media reveal selling opportunities

If there is one thing I try as much as possible not to miss, it is an ample opportunity. I always grab it with both hands. A couple of weeks ago, I published an article titled ‘Are you Listening?’ Your customers are out there talking, asking questions about your products or that of your competitor  — this is your best moment to sell. Last week, subscribers of a digital satellite TV firm were all over the social media registering their dissatisfaction over services being rendered.

The firm deployed its Facebook platform to appeal to its customers that it was having “interference’’ with its broadcast transmissions. The platform provided the firm an opportunity to reach out to the distraught customers’ real time and the firm’s response succeeded in calming frayed nerves. It could have been suicidal if the firm did not have a presence on such medium as a competitor could zero-in on that opportunity to win more customers to its side.

Know them before they meet you

The sales and marketing job is all about knowing who is likely to buy your product. Identifying potential customers is pretty difficult. Even when you might have identified one, breaking the ice is fundamental. The easiest way to break the ice of a potential customer is to know more about them. The social media is where most people vent their personal issues. I once kept a tab on a potential client for months until I discovered he supports Barcelona Football club. I also support the same club. We connected. I sealed the deal.

I bet you would love a soft land

Have you tried selling your product or service to a C-level executive? Hmmm, it could be quite challenging. In this digital age, placing calls through to C-level executives may not be effective. A typical C-level executive receives a barage of e-mails and even phone calls every day.

But reaching out to such people on social media may be quite helpful. Now, think of meeting them on LinkedIn, a social media platform for professionals. You are not likely to be taken. It has worked for me several times. Social media turn cold welcomes to warm and pleasant ones.

Social media won’t replace the traditional methods (phone call and emails), but sales and marketing division can add social media to its list of marketing tools. Social media works!