The current B2B scene is more competitive than ever, and increasing your B2B sales has become harder than walking on a tightrope. However, nearly half of all B2B revenue is influenced directly by social selling
Employees, on average, have 10 times more connections on social media than individual organizations. When you tap into the power of employee advocacy, you can multiply your sales opportunities by leaps and bounds. In this article, we will tell you 4 easy ways in which you can use employee advocacy to increase your B2B sales. Read on.
How Advocacy Affects Sales
B2B buyers are increasingly relying on social media channels for completing purchases. According to an IDC survey, 75% of B2B buyers turn to social media platforms for purchasing decisions. This number is even higher for C-level executives; 84% of them consult social channels in the buying process.
With more and more business buyers relying on social channels, businesses are implementing social selling in their sales pipelines. Social selling involves leveraging the social networks of sales representatives to target qualified leads and prospects, build trusted professional relationships, and ultimately achieve sales targets.
Chris Boudreaux, Author of The Most Powerful Brand On Earth, and a CRM Advisory Executive, reflects on social selling:
“On average, we saw that traffic generated by employees converted at about 2.5x the rate of traffic generated by the brand. In fact, employees each generated more than $100,000 of sales. In essence, we got more traffic that converted better at a lower cost.”
With this shift towards social selling, companies need to prepare their sales teams to regularly and strategically share content on social networks. Doing so results in a 57% higher likelihood of seeing increased sales leads. Plus, sales representatives who are engaged in advocacy exceed their sales targets by up to 45%.
With that said, let’s look at practical ways to increase B2B sales with employee advocacy:
1. Use social selling to nurture leads and understand your audience
We have already stated how social selling helps aid sales. Around 78% of consumers are more eager to buy from a brand if they have a positive presence on social media. And with your employees posting positively about your brand, this effect multiplies.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn help you position your brand as a leader in its field when everyone from employees to leadership is posting brand-aware content. When your employees interact with potential customers, trust and credibility also increase.
Remember that sales are more about building relationships than anything else. Your brand needs to be a part of as many conversations as possible. For instance, if a lead inquires about a certain feature in the comment section of a post, jump in on the conversation and guide them towards your product.
2. Optimize your content strategy
An effective content strategy can make or break your employee advocacy program. Without a clear content plan, you’ll fail to convey the value of your offering to both employees and potential leads.
First of all, figure out what kind of content your employees are willing to share. Make sure their interests align with your organizational content strategy. While creating content to distribute to your teams, make sure it fulfills the three core principles: Education, Entertainment, and Enlightenment. Aim for content that fulfills all three criteria, and makes consumers eager to try out your product.
However, creating a stream of content that satisfies both consumers and appeals to employees is no easy feat. You need to target different demographics, manage hashtags, and customize tonality, all while creating different versions for different teams.
A tool like Highperformr eases the headache of social media management. Highperformr takes care of everything from content ideation and creation to optimization and publishing. Highperformr also comes with a complete employee advocacy suite that makes content distribution across teams a breeze.
3. Keep your employees socially engaged for talent retention
According to a LinkedIn study, companies with socially engaged employees are 58% more likely to attract top talent and 20% more likely to retain them. As more qualified sales professionals join your team, sales figures witness a rise. After capturing content, social engagement encourages a mutual relationship with the clientele and employees, which aids in their retention.
Plus, experienced employees better understand your company’s products, services, and client base. They are better equipped to build and maintain strong relationships with clients; this is essential in B2B sales where long-term partnerships are the norm.
4. Build awareness through employee advocacy
It is no secret that building awareness around your brand is the most challenging part of the sales process. In fact, 40% of sales reps agree that they struggle with awareness building, whether in the outbound, marketing, or prospecting process. Even cold calling and emailing is a time-consuming game of luck.
Employee advocacy specifically aims to build awareness by taking advantage of your employees’ social networks. To increase awareness through advocacy, you need to
- Monitor and engage with the business demographic that is engaging with branded content
- Filter the engagements by their probability of becoming a prospect
- Have a sales rep nudge the potential prospects towards the sales pipeline’
Something as straightforward as this can have a major effect on your sales performance. 65% of sales reps fulfilled their sales targets with advocacy, compared to 47% who didn’t.
However, straightforward doesn’t always mean easy. To streamline the entire employee advocacy process, Highperformr offers a complete advocacy solution that turns employees into brand advocates and expands your brand footprint on social media.
Highperformr’s Social AI turns marketing content like blogs and case studies into social posts to improve content visibility and provides employees with all the necessary tools they need to publish brand-aware content on their social profiles.
Gives Sales A Boost With Employee Advocacy
The bottom line is that increasing sales in a hyper-competitive B2B market is no joke, and employee advocacy is a golden opportunity that you can’t let go of. From expanding your content reach to shaping positive brand sentiment, employee advocacy is a cost-effective no-brainer to improve sales performance while improving brand image.
Highperformr is the only tool you’ll need to initiate and manage your employee advocacy program. From AI-powered content generation to customized content distribution, Highperformr leverages the voice of your employees and creates a powerful sales strategy for you.
Try Highperformr today and see the results for yourself.
