NOVEMBER 2008: In this issue...

Do you Twitter? For the life of me, I never thought someone would ask me this question. But, millions are doing it. And, it’s likely you are too…or at least you have thought of it. Social media and connecting thanks to user generated content is now the latest and greatest way for companies to connect with consumers. The only problem is that for most of us, connecting in a meaningful, measurable and profitable way can be a problem.

Here’s a quick breakdown of social media by the numbers:

There are an estimated 70 million blogs, and over 57 million Americans reading those blogs. Its reported that 30% of Americans use some form of social media tool at least 2 or more times a week and 25% of Americans are interacting with companies at least once a week using social media tools.

When it comes to how consumers are actually using social media, it is primarily to problem solve, solicit feedback and root out new ways to interact with a brand. In this same study by Opinion Research Corporation, 56% of consumers say they feel a stronger connection with a brand thanks to their engagement with social media, and 57% feel better served by that brand.

According to initial findings from the Routes to Revenue survey for the CMO Council’s Precision Promotion campaign, 60% of marketing executives surveyed indicated that more personalized, relevant and precise messaging is the top strategy they plan to deploy to achieve greater revenue and profitability.

Customers want to engage. They want to do business with companies who know them. And companies are looking to get more personal. The challenge is to know how we, as sales and marketing executives, utilize these tools to best engage with the customer. It is tempting to use tools like LinkedIn and Facebook or Twitter to track our prospects, stalking business down to their last meal. How do we root through the causal conversations to target those customers who are ready to buy? How do we listen to customer feedback forums and chats to improve customer experience?

We have gathered an impressive group of voices in this issue of the eJournal that will look at how social media is changing how we operate. There are two really great articles on the recession and how we can leverage social media for sales...two topics that will likely be top of mind as we head into the end of a rough year. And in the spirit of social media, as you run across your own best practices, why not post your thoughts in the CLOSE community!

Until next month,

Liz Miller
Vice President
CMO Council
lmiller@cmocouncil.org

Why Your Sales Force Needs Social Media

By Nicky Jameson

For many companies the words Web 2.0, or Social Media conjures up images to do with technology and new systems. Often with the thoughts of new technology comes the fear, within businesses, that they lack the understanding of this “New Technology” or that it’s the preserve of teenagers and “the younger generation.”

This thinking can be a barrier to the adoption of Social Media, to the detriment of the company. The truth is, Social Media is less of a technology set and more of an online experience – one that is driven by the customer rather than the company.

Because of Social Media…

• Your customers have now come to expect a higher level of interaction with and accessibility to, the information that drives their buying choices.
• Your customers research your products and services on-line – and not necessarily on your website. They go to wikis, blogs, they read peer reviews, and importantly listen to other users of your service.
• Your customers will Google your company name (or your name) and see what comes up. They will download and read your articles, and see if you have a newsletter that will tell them more about your value proposition - outside your products.
• They will look at, and take not of, what feedback people have been giving on your products and use that information to inform their buying decisions

If people have been talking about you, and it’s not the face you’d rather put forward, you have a problem. A big one. It can be fixed, but that means you must recognize there is a problem… and fix it.

The bottom line is, the competitive landscape has shifted – and your customers (or potential customers) have done the shifting. Implications for your sales force? Customers are quite likely to know a great deal more about your products and services than they themselves do. This is a challenge, because, in effect, your sales reps are competing with customer knowledge as well as points of differentiation of the “traditional” competition.

Companies need to arm their sales representatives with as much knowledge as possible – in the shortest possible time – to help them speak to customer needs and sell more effectively.

Social Media tools - properly deployed - can help you sales representatives quickly access updated information and knowledge on products and service, gain deeper understanding of customer needs and what customers are thinking and saying. Results: a better informed sales force, increased productivity, more confident sales people and higher sales revenues.

Much of the discussion around Web 2.0/Social Media has been focused on marketers. However the Sales force, as your frontline, and often face of the company, can definitely benefit.

Read more at http://nickyjameson.com »

How Salespeople Can Adapt During a Recession

By Liam Venter of SalesFish

Contrary to knee-jerk expectations, periodic market recessions can be a good thing for the professional salesperson. If you're willing to adapt, recession markets can offer great opportunities to grow both revenues and market shares. If you can grow your market share without discounting during a market downturn, you should be able to convert your increased market share into even more lucrative profits when the market recovers.

Why are recession markets such great opportunities?

• In recessions purchasers are more selective and take longer to make decisions.
• They are more likely to break purchasing habits as they are under more pressure to cut costs, increase profits and find smarter ways of operating.

When customers are more selective, take longer to make decisions and are looking for smarter options this suits sales people who have a consultative approach to selling.

A consultative sales methodology enables you to better engage with the customer over a longer period of time and it helps you work with clients to provide smarter solutions.

Being liked, being charming and being fun, etc as always are important ...but these items become comparitively less important than being valuable to your client.

Consultative sales people understand their clients business, their operating environment and the issues that effect them. They understand their clients requirements and the specific results they need from a solution. This allows them to better structure and deliver deals that will be compelling.

Read more at SalesFish »

Using Social Media to Enhance your Sales Effort

By Barb Mosher for CMS Wire

So it is true. We, as consumers, may know more about the competitive landscape for a product we want than the companies that sell that product. And all because we spend a lot of our time on the Internet using a little known thing called social networking.

Alas, it appears that product vendors may have caught on to our evaluation methods because they, too, are now starting to use social media technologies to improve knowledge management and, as a result, their sales figures.

The Aberdeen Group provides research on various business and technology topics that interest organizations today. One of their latest research reports, called Sales 2.0 — Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration, discusses how social media solutions help improve knowledge management within an company and thus improves sales.

The research included surveys with over 210 companies during the August and September time period. The focus was on how these companies used social media solutions to shorten sales cycles and increase productivity among sales teams.

Some key findings of best-in-class companies in the report include:

• 66% have a centralized repository for account, contact and opportunity information
• 73% plan to increase budgets in 2009 for the use of social media solutions
• 59% consider the use of social media within the sales department as a priority
• 55% have the support of senior management for the use of internal social media solutions

Best in class companies are defined in the report as those companies with year-over-year increases/decreases in things like sales-cycle length, conversion rates, time spent on administrative tasks, etc…

When you think of it, this is really not ground-breaking news. The explosive growth of consumers using the Internet and social networking sites to gather information on products and their companies has been happening for awhile now. However, until recently it appears that companies have reserved the use of social media solutions to marketing departments and internal “project-type” collaboration.

Sales departments should have been taking advantage of these technologies long ago. As a matter of fact, Sales and Marketing should be sharing these internal solutions and collaborating much more. Marketers tend to spend a lot of their time on external social network sites listening to what’s being said about their products and services and the competition’s. And if they aren’t, they should be. According to the research, only 43% of the best in class companies use both internal and external solutions.

In terms of specific technology used by these best in class companies, the list is standard: 79% CRM, 71% blogs, 64% wikis and 46% social tagging tools. The companies not best in class really weren’t that much different.

It seems important to note that only 20% of the companies surveyed were considered best in class, with 50% being average and the rest laggards. What this tells us is that companies still have a long way to go when it comes to using social media to improve knowledge management and sales in the sales department.

More on the Aberdeen study »