Why Selling on Social Media Can Lose Printing Companies Sales
Do you get results from your social media?
I spoke to one printing company recently that was struggling with its online presence. The company had invested a lot of time and resources in setting up social media streams. But it wasn't seeing any results.
When I looked at what the company was doing, the problem was clear. It was just focusing on advertising and promoting itself, while trying to sell its services. That’s where the company went wrong.
Successful social media is all about engagement
Printing companies that work on getting to know their customers online will start creating strong relationships with prospects. They will have a much better chance of turning these into strong partnerships when they move the relationship offline. That means they control a strong pipeline of potential customers. So these companies will have a better chance of achieving their social media targets and their sales targets.
Companies that focus on selling and promoting themselves online are actually less likely to achieve the sales they want. Their chances of winning business are more of a lottery. Prospects are more likely to be price focused as they are responding to special offers or blatant sales promotions. They have lost the chance to control that pipeline of engaged prospects.
Here are three ways to engage your prospects
The first way to do this is to be a useful source of information for your social media connections. I make a point of posting articles that are of interest to my target audience. These appear in my LinkedIn, twitter, Facebook and Google+ feeds. My LinkedIn connections also receive an e-mail of useful resources every few weeks.
I also make sure that my connections know where they can find me. I may connect with someone on LinkedIn. However, this connection may prefer using twitter. So I always send my connections a message asking where else I should connect with them. I also send them details of my other social media accounts so they can choose where to connect with me that suits them.
- Categories:
- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Many printing companies are frustrated how hard it is to engage buyers in today’s world. That’s where Matthew Parker can help. He is a gamekeeper turned poacher. Parker has bought print for more than 20 years and received over 1,400 print sales pitches. He now uses his buyer’s point of view to give practical advice to printers. He helps them engage with prospects and customers to create profitable relationships.
Download his free e-book, "Ten Common Print Selling Errors And What To Do About Them" and check out his recently launched book, "How To Succeed At Print Sales: Setting targets, planning the right activities and making sure goals are met."
