Here’s a thought. What if marketing relinquished control of social media as a marketing tool and turned it into a sales enablement tool?
The age old issue with ROI for B2B direct marketing is the difficulty in linking to a dollar amount. Social media marketing hinges on connecting directly with the customer and conversing. This is more of a B2B sales role and responsibility. It is at this stage that you see ROI.
Marketing’s expertise is in the creation of content or assets defining brand and credibility. Communications from PR to direct marketing spreading the word in a peanut butter approach. Social media, while in some perspectives a great tool to reach out to the masses, also creates the conundrum of personal connections so that a broad message is impersonal and too vague for a person to connect to.
How about creating mechanisms for sales to engage with customers through networks?
- Marketing provides sales with content that is appropriate to send out using Twitter such as time limited offers, event notices, service renewals, and upgrade notices.
- Salespeople have community pages to hold forums or presentations
- Community pages could act as portals to connect customers, sales, and partners for collaborative solution-ing
- Customers could influence content on sales community pages by rating or voting in topics and solutions that best apply
There is some precedent for this today. Collaborative solutions exist from CRM companies that allow for internal social/professional networks. As sales is becoming comfortable in these environments, it can be an easy leap to expand beyond internal and allow for external customer facing interactions.
Where is the ROI? Sales touts the benefits, closure rates increase, increased sales.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=fe6f4743-7e74-4615-bb1f-8afa9aa9da64)
Filed under: b2b, brainstorm, marketing technology, networking, social media, b2b, b2b marketing, Business, collaboration, Customer relationship management, Direct marketing, marketing, Marketing and Advertising, marketing sales alignment, PR, public relations, sales engagement, social media, Twitter
[...] all you B2B marketers thought I was crazy when I wrote about giving up control of social media to sales, this one will really take you into the Twilight [...]
[...] I’ve talked a lot about marketers giving up control of content. I suggest allowing sales to be the conductors for social media in your organization. I also suggest allowing customers to [...]
[...] Top Posts Social Media ImprovWeb Metrics Don’t Cut It For Social MediaGiving Control of Social Media to Sales for B2B Marketing ROI [...]
[...] Article: Giving Control of Social Media to Sales for B2B Marketing ROI Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Social media and the salespersonEricsson debuts [...]