When you’re looking to buy something, which situation do you prefer? Getting instantly accessible information that’s specific to your needs and decision-making process or sifting through an amalgamation of random content and items? It’s a no-brainer, right?
In the early stages of launching my company Grapevine6, we met with all kinds of businesses to find a fit for our social engagement tool. One of those early conversations summed up the negative perception of social selling. The director of an inside sales team asked, “Why am I paying our reps to spend half their time on LinkedIn when they’re just building their résuméto get another job?”
Management should have known better. Salespeople are driven to generate revenue and don’t spend half their day doing something that doesn’t drive sales. Social isn’t just for wasting time or finding a job. It’s a powerful resource for advancing the buying cycle and is especially effective for considered purchases where trust is key. It’s a Rolodex that’s never out of date, a network you can be in front of 24/7 and a treasure trove of background information on every contact you want to reach.
It seems obvious now, but it took a few early adopters to prove the business case. Global technology giant SAP jumped in early and had so much success that it scaled up to a global social selling program. Building over 1 billion Euros in pipeline across 15,000 salespeople around the world, SAP proved that social selling was a game changer.
Sales wasn’t alone in using social media. Early on, marketing recognized the stickiness of social, which created a huge opportunity to drive brand awareness and more importantly, build credibility. The Edelman Trust Barometer consistently showed that companies had a trust problem. Consumers trusted their friends, not brands. Social marketing was a way to tap into that social proof.
The technology supporting the first wave of social marketing specifically served brands. Highly complex tools sifted through the firehose of social content to identify brand mentions and orchestrate multi-touch campaigns. While effective, these technologies demanded dedicated expert resources to operate, which restricted access to mid-to-large enterprises. There was a gap in the market to make social and content marketing more accessible to individuals and small businesses.
The one-size-fits-all approach to content was particularly frustrating for the sales team. Sales was the most interested in engaging customers on social to build relationships with buyers, but posting the same brand content as everyone else was turning customers off. They needed relevant third-party content that was authentic, helpful and could build a personal brand that buyers could connect with and trust. Employee advocacy tools elevated the company brand, but a new wave of tools was needed to that elevate the salesperson’s brand.
The key to creating an authentic brand on social is personalization, but marketing could never manually curate personalized content for an entire salesforce of thousands. AI changes the game by enabling differentiation at scale. The next wave of social selling tools is here and has content and AI at its core. Tools like Grapevine6 use AI to read through the thousands of articles published yesterday to find the 10 that are most relevant to each salesperson’s brand.
AI also enables scaling regulatory and risk management in social selling. Digital risk tools from Proofpoint, SafeGuard Cyber, ZeroFox and ThetaLake can inspect content, including video and images, for dozens of different types of risk that impact corporate brands. They can also secure social accounts from security risks, like hackers.
As both the market and tools mature, companies that sell on relationships must be actively engaged in social selling. The practice has moved past the early adopter stage and is becoming table stakes for a modern digital salesforce. Today, with the right tools, salespeople in any industry can be empowered to develop an authentic personal voice on social and leverage the full potential of these channels without posing a regulatory or reputational risk to their employers.
Mike Orr is the Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer at Grapevine6, where he is responsible for product delivery. Before joining the Grapevine6 team, Mike spent several years in management consulting, working with some of Canada's marquee brands. He led a skunkworks and project management team at one of Canada's leading digital advertising agencies on projects that won global awards and recognition.
Mediafly’s sales enablement app combines content management, interactive presentation tools, sales readiness technology and analytics with the goal of improving sales effectiveness and closing more deals. Its cutting-edge technology and advisory services aim to guide companies through their sales enablement journey over time.
Mediafly’s offerings include:
The solution is intended for midsize to enterprise sales and marketing teams in a variety of verticals like CPG, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, technology and more.
Mediafly is positioned to integrate with a variety of CRMs and ERP systems, including Salesforce, SAP and Microsoft Dynamics. Additional integrations can be found here.
Mediafly is a SaaS solution that is priced per user. Pricing tiers are contingent on the size of the user base and whether the solution provided is out of the box or includes customizations. Advisory Services are priced per workshop.
Current clients include GE Healthcare, IBM, ADP and more.
Mediafly’s solution is designed to make it easy for reps to succeed in every sales interaction by moving away from a traditional sales pitch to a purposeful and engaging discussion focused on the challenges of the buyer.
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NewsCred, an enterprise content marketing platform provider, announced it has secured $20 million in funding. The round, which brings the company’s total funding amount to over $100 million, was led by InterWest Partners, with additional participation from Dentsu Inc., Escalate Capital Partners, FTV Capital, Mayfield Fund, FirstMark Capital and Greycroft.
When it comes to content binging, the usual crop of names often comes to mind: “Stranger Things,” “Orange Is The New Black” and “Big Little Lies.” But content binging is no longer confined to just Netflix and Hulu.
With a market saturated with content, B2B buyers must ensure they can trust their sources to get the information they need to make a purchase. Research shows that close to three-quarters (74%) of B2B buyers are performing more detailed ROI analysis prior to deciding.
NetLine, a B2B content syndication and lead generation network, launched a new, free tool called Audience Explorer, which is designed to help marketers search and analyze buyer consumption and engagement behavior in real time.
Modern buyers demand modern buying experiences, and that means the opportunity to consume as much content as they want — when they want — all in one place. Considering this, many progressive B2B marketing teams are turning to engagement hubs that provide their audience with the information they need on their terms.
Webinars continue to be a staple in many B2B demand gen strategies, with studies show that webinars are one of the most useful content formats for generating positive engagement with prospective customers. Findings from Demand Gen Report’s annual Content Preferences Survey show that close to half (47%) of respondents find webinars valuable at the early and mid-stage of their buying process. Also, close to two-thirds (64%) of B2B buyers are willing to spend 20 to 60 minutes watching a webinar — more than any other content format.
There is a recurring question that arises when assessing B2B campaigns and demand gen initiatives: what’s working? Progressive B2B organizations are putting a bigger emphasis on producing relevant messaging and content, as well as making it easier for buyers to research and make purchase decisions on their own terms.