The first essential step in successful sales prospecting is to identify your target audience. Prospects generally have the same social profile and needs as your customers. That's why having a rich customer database is essential when prospecting on social platforms. Your company's marketing team needs to carefully study the interests, issues and Internet/social networking habits of this target audience.
You'll then be able to determine exactly which social networks are the most relevant for reaching a large number of prospects for your company. Initially, focus your customer acquisition efforts on no more than two social networks. Discovering prospects and converting them into customers to make more sales improves your company's financial health, as much as tax optimization. If your business is subject tocorporation tax, there are several steps you can take to reduce your company's tax burden.
Prospects consulting your company's profile for the first time should retain a professional, serious and modern image of your brand. The profile photo must be carefully chosen to reflect your brand's values and graphic charter. On your social networks, the cover photo is a way of showing an interesting facet of your professional activity to your customers and prospects.
To attract a large number of prospects to your account, you also need to fill in all profile fields with up-to-date, clear, precise and concise information. Describe your company's activity and talk about your professional experience. You need to give the impression that you've mastered your subject to encourage prospects to discover your products and services and contact you.
For effective sales prospecting on social networks, you need to fill in the relevant keywords used by prospects to search for your solutions. Many SEO tools can help you find these strategic keywords. If you use them intelligently, you'll appear in the first results of the social network, when the prospect does a geolocalized search for your company.
There are a number of steps to follow in order to prospect effectively on the networks. You need to plan regular production of high value-added content for your potential customers. By addressing the issues your prospects or customers face and the innovative services your company can provide, you can gradually build an image as an expert in your field. Becoming an authoritative social page in your industry considerably increases your trust capital with consumers. Publishing content that's entertaining in relation to current events can also provide you with an opportunity for intelligent business prospecting.
Digital management tools such as Hootsuite, Swello or Rapidely can help you make regular, engaging posts (with the right keywords and hashtags). You can also hire a community manager who has a thorough understanding of the algorithm of your chosen social network (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.). For example, with a skilled community manager, your company can increase its visibility on TikTok and quickly reach a considerable number of prospects who will potentially turn into customers.
As part of business development, regularly sharing entertaining, educational or informative quality content encourages your target audience to relay your publications. The aim is to get the most views, "likes", shares and comments for your publications. The more interaction your content generates, the more it is promoted by the social network's algorithm. This increases the number of your followers or subscribers, and therefore your potential customer database.
You should not hesitate to react or reply to as many comments as possible under your publications, in all courtesy. To find prospects through social networks, you should also often share publications from authority sites in your field of activity. On your social network, there are probably a few popular groups that bring together prospects interested in issues related to your business.
Become an active member of these groups. For each issue discussed in the group, don't hesitate to provide relevant, easy-to-understand answers to the questions asked by Internet users. A web surfer who is satisfied with your answers is a web surfer who is very likely to want to learn more about you, your products and your services, and to contact you. This creates a relationship of trust between your future customer and your company.
The profiles most likely to be positively receptive to your sales prospecting action are those who interact regularly when you make posts. You can plan targeted paid ads to be sent to a group of prospects you've identified. These sales prospecting ads contain a call-to-action (CTA) button to redirect potential customers to a higher stage in the sales cycle.
You can also send a personalized message to the prospect to present a valuable offer that may be of interest to him (based on his interactions under your posts). Suggest the possibility of a telephone or face-to-face meeting. If the prospect responds favorably to your message, proactively pursue the discussion.
Without being intrusive, try to ask questions that will help you qualify your potential customer's maturity. This valuable information will help you to effectively conclude sales prospecting and send ultra-personalized content to your target audience, making it easier for them to think about your products and services. In this way, your company can integrate marketing automation into its social marketing strategy.
Written by our expert Editorial staff
October 4, 2023
