LinkedIn’s State of Sales Report reveals that 44% of marketing and sales teams need a drop in their responsiveness to email and social messaging.
C-19 is often blamed for this. Buyers want to speak with experts and need support for their future and current challenges.
Why are sales and marketing teams challenged to develop strong social relationships to overcome sales plateaus, sales drops, and sales troughs?
In a recent Stop The Sales Drop podcast, Michael Brenner, my partner Eric Gruber and I discussed the need to end social content campaigns and embrace an always-on-content approach. Campaigns are brutal because agencies or marketing teams create content and then hope it will increase awareness and leads on LinkedIn. In the hope that the message will be amplified, they will push the content out to the sales team. In many cases, it can add to the noise because it needs to be more relevant to the accounts sales and marketing want.
First, content should be focused on key accounts and the sales conversations they want. It should be focused on driving revenue with existing and new accounts.
In his video interview, Matt Heinz discussed ensuring your messaging and content results in sales conversations and revenue. Matt explained that most content marketing sends via campaigns and messaging to sales on LinkedIn responds to prospects’ needs. There is no differentiation because all the other companies are responding to the exact requirements with similar messaging and content. No one is creating a buying strategy.
The focus should not be “what keeps prospects awake at night.” Instead, it should be “what should keep them awake at night.” This is why messaging and social media content should:
Ardath Albee, who spoke at the Stop The Sales Drop June 2020 virtual summit, which you can still access on-demand, said buyers constantly shift their priorities to adapt to the changing environment. Sales and marketing keep their messaging, LinkedIn profiles, or content the same.
Ardath was 100% correct when I reviewed profiles, messaging, and content over the past four months. According to my latest study, 95% of LinkedIn’s sales and marketing teams could be more effective. I found minimal personal branding and very few stories that relate to business. And almost no one is helping prospects with their current problems so they can invest later.
Lori mentioned virtual selling in Lori’s Stop the Sales Drop podcast. Even though C-19 is behind us, there will be fewer live meetings and events.