Why for B2B Sales Social Media Marketing Fails to Drive Any Revenue ?

It is not uncommon for businesses especially in B2B sales, to complain of dismal returns from social media marketing.

Despite huge investments and creating tailor made content it fails to drive any revenue.

Yes, it does works for some new age digital companies (namely, app based) like ordering food, booking a ride etc. A typical characteristic for all these purchases revolve around sales invoice value being low and convenience matter more than due diligence. However it is all-together different ball game when it comes to B2B sales.

There’s no doubt businesses need to have digital footprint.  They also need to concentrate at least part of their marketing budget on social media marketing and planning.

However, most of the companies in B2B sales are now questioning the productivity aspect of social media marketing.  It is no brainer that social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc. drives their revenue from advertising. It works for them to create constant demand by instilling FOMO (Fear of missing out).

Here are 3 reasons why social media has failed to work in B2B sales and solutions to ponder and avoid these failures.

User Engagement in b2b sales

User engagement refers to how a website visitor is consuming content or interacts. Probably it’s a Like, share comment, subscribe or follow.  All of this desirable, but this is where it ends generally.

It leaves more questions than answers – Is this user really my target audience? Is it meaningful to spend time and resources to further engage with this lead?

The B2B sales are a complete process wherein technical specifications, compliance or meeting buyer is core sales criteria. Buyer has a list of pre requisite and follows set procedure before issuing a PO or signing a contract. The buyer wants to see a face and reliable answers to their queries in pre-sales phase itself. A demo or satisfactory answers to clarifications can make or break the buying decisions.

This is only possible with on-field visits and satisfying buyer queries. In any B2B sales it is usually a gang management wherein you have to satisfy decision makers and decision influencers. It is lot of hard work and sales personnel need to find supporters (within customer organisation) and beat competitors.  Surely, you will agree that is virtually impossible to manage this with online interaction.

Only LinkedIn as a platform has been able to partly provide meaningful engagement by giving paid access to real people.

Solution:

Any B2B Sales should have 80% resource allocated to on- field sales and 20% to other sales aspects such as digital lead generation or CRM. This is the reason we at Selloverseas.com have combination of passive sales (through online posting) and active sales. Our network of Global Sales Consultant partner in 32 countries makes it easy to manage active sales (on field visits) and close the contract.

Visibility on Social Platforms, Groups and Forums.

A survey shows 85% of POST(s) on social media never reaches the serious prospects. The sheer volume of posting is so high that a POST loses visibility within matter of minutes.  Yes, it can be argued that you need to pay and promote the POS. This works for social media sites, as most platforms drive their revenue from this aspect.

Many social media platforms are facilitating formation of specific b2b sales groups or communities of like -minded users. As these forums gains traction, they slowly (and surely) turn towards promoting different agenda all together.  They are rampant with promotion of political ideologies or undesirable content which drives away serious prospects.

In their quest to show the user base (to advertisers) admins or social media platform refrain avoid any removal of users. Of course all of us are aware of spam BOTs which amplifies the user base.

Solution:

We at Selloverseas.com have created a b2b community wherein only verified companies can POST (either FREE or PAID) to connect with Distributors, Franchisee and independent sales agents.

The POST is also always LIVE and searchable through online tool within the respective business category, geography and keywords.

The POST   can receive response from only distributors, franchisee and sales agent within the targeted business category or geography.

Alignment with actual Sales Strategy

So what is sales strategy? In case you are not sure sales strategy is just “A series of steps to achieve your sales goals”. In simple terms, managing the sales funnel from lead generation to PO and payment.

Any sales strategy should have clear goals, specific plans to reach those goals, and must be achievable. The social media does provide some analytics; define goals however limited input on targeted profile. This leads to cost overruns and reduces productivity as mostly cost is based on views or Clicks.

Solution:

We at Selloverseas.com provide a quick market scan report and generate list of probable b2b sales prospects with required profile. This makes it easy for businesses to align their sales strategy and plan to approach shortlisted profiles. This valuable feedback on pricing, market potential and landing cost not only helps to save time and resources. But also aligns the sales strategy by appointing the channel partner as per required market segmentation and price positioning.

 Conclusion:

Social media campaigns may work well in B2C space; it is B2B part which can make businesses efficient and reliable. The real decision making still happens with human to human interaction and on field. Whatever the social media platform may boast – Likes do not pay bills…Sales do