Retail In Africa: Art and Science of Social Selling In The Digital Era

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Social networks have proven their effectiveness in digital marketing and brand promotion through all these years. The use of the social networks in the election campaign by President Barack Obama has revealed the reach of the promotion through the social networks. Digital marketing, communication and the timely dissemination of relevant information is evolving beyond anything previously available or conceivable and will continue its development.

Social media is used by more than two billion people each day, making it the most important emerging marketing forum, according to Tomer Garzberg, a messiah of the potential of online interaction.

With a population of over 191,835,936 people, Nigeria has approximately 91,598,757 Internet users according to reports from NCC for June 2017, with 16,000,000 Facebook users. The mobile penetration has also continued to rise with the influx of more android year after year.

That said, the statistics above shows clearly why businesses in Nigeria need to take seriously their digital retail strategies and become active social sellers.

Before drilling down into how the art of social selling in the digital world works, here is a definition of the concept, for those who are less familiar with it.

Koka Sexton, Global Senior Social Marketing Manager at LinkedIn, said it best: “Social selling is the process of using your professional brand to fill your pipeline with the right people, insights, and relationships.”

Social networking is now viewed as a legitimate means of strategic marketing. Has your company thought of How their sales are impacted by the development of new social media and viral marketing tools?

I usually come across busy executives who often see social media as time-wasting and think of it in terms of reducing productivity and not as a marketing tool.
Let’s get this straight, as more e-consumers become digitally savvy, businesses need to shift both their approach, strategies from being traditional to being digital.
Around 50% of businesses in Nigeria are currently using social media or viral marketing as their primary marketing driver, however, predictions by digital experts show that this percentage will continue to increase so far e-consumers stay glued to their phones, and what to make decisions on the spot.

What businesses must understand about this age is that there are revolutionary developments going on and they need to be paying more attention to them, as well as learning new selling skills to take advantage of this growing phenomenon as the sales cycle in most industries is certainly being impacted.

Sales strategies are becoming more conversational as social media marketing unfolds.
I’ve studied and taught many areas of social selling to brands and individuals which has been so helpful in the world of professional selling. The consequences of not using proper social selling dynamics in your sales interactions are severe, and most of us don’t even know we’re doing anything wrong because we haven’t been taught.
The advocacy here is not to suggest that traditional stores or strategies of marketing are not suitable, but rather that businesses need to understand whether their products can be seen as more attractive to their customer if their customers are digitally savvy by taking the product to the customer in a manner that is attractive to them.

If you are in sales, it is time to get your social CRM software and start Social Selling!

Here are some keys to get you started!

* Get on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram–build an audience
* Be natural. This attracts people that will want to buy from you
* Monitor and be responsive to requests you can help with
* Get all your existing clients into your social network

Do you agree with the effect that Social Networking is shifting the way we should approach Sales?

 

 

Written by: Ayeni Ekundayo

Culled from: http://independent.ng/art-science-social-selling-digital-era/