In the United States, there is a lot of attention for the influence of social media on the purchasing process. Social Marketing, Social Selling and now also Social Business are often heard terms there. In the Netherlands, many marketers and salespeople do not seem to have an active social sales and marketing policy yet. Comments such as 'that doesn't work for us', or 'we're going to look at that in 3 years' are something I hear regularly. The question is: can you, as a sales organization, afford to adopt a wait-and-see attitude towards social media?
The buying process has changed dramatically due to social media and the abundance of digital information available to a potential buyer (prospect). Recent research shows that before a potential customer talks to someone from the company, they have already completed 60% of the buying process.
Potential customers increasingly consult colleagues, friends and family members about france phone number list their experiences with certain products or services. Asking for advice is now also very easy through the connections on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In addition, buyers search the internet for what has already been written about the product to be purchased. As a result, consumers are gaining more and more influence on the brand.
Influencing potential buyers
Marketers must respond to these changes by, among other things, influencing potential buyers at an early stage and maintaining the relationship until the buyer is prepared to buy ( lead nurturing , maintaining the relationship with potential future prospects).
For example: I just bought a new laptop and compared two brands. I did this by downloading brochures with product information from the internet. One brand asked for my name and email, the other did not. The brand that had my information sent me a friendly personal email 2 days after I downloaded the brochure asking if I had any questions and giving me some interesting information about the laptops I had looked at. By doing this, they started a dialogue with me and created an advantage over the other brand.