Less than 25 years ago, many products and services were sold in a physical way by sales staff who provided expert advice on the spot, before sales took place. But there was always a friendly social process for customers to check out their choices and decisions in advance with friends and neighbours.
New Zealanders shared their purchasing suggestions over the back fence, in the pub or around the office kitchen, but the proliferation of social media together with mobile phones has amplified and significantly taken over this interaction.
Whether or not your business has picked up on it, you now have competitors who have added social and digital sales channels that are winning new customers and business away from old school approaches.
Social selling has arrived
In just a decade, social selling has ingrained itself in our permanently altered customer purchasing behaviour. With more than 3.5 million Facebook users in New Zealand, and customers being “five times more reliant on digital content* than in the early 2,000’s, the numbers paint a massively changed customer landscape.
*Nielsen: The role of Content in the Consumer Decision Making Process
To begin, businesses need to develop a digital selling strategy. As a first step, implemention of a social selling programme can be an effective and relatively inexpensive place to start.
Despite its increasing influence and impact on the sales process, most New Zealand companies don't have a social media strategy for their business.
What is a Social selling strategy?
With a social selling strategy, businesses use social media to interact directly with their potential customers. That means Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, Snapchat etc.….and it is rare to find NZ businesses with a coherent presence in each of these domains, even where they are the perfect channels for their products or services.
The best social sellers can engage prospective customers with ideas, images, articles, offers and video through tapping into the type of digital content that customers can relate to and will want to engage with.
Your aim should be to connect and build engagement, interaction and trust with potential customers until they are ready to buy your service or product.
The principles of social selling are to win customers by appearing before them in their day to day life – on their phones or desktops, rather than trying to close a sale once in the room, through a pitch or in a meeting.
Research by PwC found that 78% of consumers were influenced by social media in some way when purchasing.
PwC, 2016 Total Retail Global Survey.
It is now common knowledge that many customers want to find out pretty much anything that is important to them about a product or service - from each other, as well as from your business or website.
Research by Price Waterhouse Coopers in the US found that 78% of consumers were influenced by social media in some way when purchasing, while nearly half said that reviews, comments and feedback on social media influenced their buying behavior.
While this interaction with digital networks creates the potential to influence a consumer's buying decision in a positive way through social selling. It also makes it easy for customers to discover negative information about your business.
Why is social selling so important?
Today's consumers are savvy and are less susceptible to traditional sales techniques. Often customers have already made up their mind on items and stores or businesses to visit prior to purchasing. Many people and businesses now no longer interact with historic techniques – magazines, newspapers, direct mail or unsolicited sales phone calls.
With many New Zealanders now making their decisions about buying goods and services in a different way, you need to dip your toes into the social selling pool or miss out on this growing and changing group of customers.
With social selling you start by thinking about things from the customer's perspective and approaching them with warm and repeated social media interaction.
You should look at the internet and social media as an additional way of developing relationships.
Sales functions are changing out of sheer necessity. The reason they’re changing is in direct response to the fact that buyer behaviour is transforming.
Digital Marketing Institute.
The Future of Digital Selling
While social selling has a customer led momentum of its own, digital selling is still in its infancy in New Zealand and offers huge opportunities for businesses wanting to grow online.
With social selling focused on social media assets, digital selling involves leveraging those digital assets.
The starting point for most businesses is to install and integrate a CRM (Customer Relationship Management software) with their website, apps, and all social media and digital channels.
This allows businesses to branch out to and communicate with potential customers on whatever social media, email, app or digital platforms they use, and to collect their contact details and preferences in one place for future messaging and interaction.
Closing thoughts...
With digital transformation now more of a necessity than a choice for small and large business, business owners need to sit down and re-plan their digital and social selling strategy to continue with sales success in the future.