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Lead Magnets: A Social Selling Tip

By Sheri Fitts of ShoeFitts Marketing.

    

Today's business world -- and particularly selling environment -- no longer takes place in a linear, flat fashion. The game has changed and the business of selling now requires you to work multi-dimensionally and embrace the digital space by implementing social selling.

Sure, the premise and goals are still the same -- increase sales and business opportunities. And, many of your selling skills are also still valid. What is different with the inclusion of social selling, is the approach and thought process. With social selling you need to rethink how you define, discover and engage with clients and prospects. You need to meet them on a different level, or social space, before many of them will even let you make in-person contact.

Consider these numbers from Sales Benchmark Index:

  • You are almost five times more apt to schedule a first meeting if you have a personal LinkedIn connection.
  • Some 98 percent of sales reps with over 5,000 LinkedIn connections achieve quota.

Those are pretty staggering numbers! And, your work doesn't stop with the sale; you must continue to incorporate social selling with constant, quality contact to keep and win new business.

That leads to one of my favorite digital marketing tips of social selling: how to use lead magnets to grow your pipeline and nurture prospects. A lead magnet is a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious guide, white paper, checklist or ebook that people want to download from your website. In a very simplistic way, these magnets help 'pull' a casual visitor in from the social sphere and navigate them onto your email nurture list -- and quite possibly your sales pipeline.

Here's how they work:

  • You regularly share interesting news on LinkedIn or Twitter and direct people to your website for more details. For instance, I might share a highlight or stat from a recent blog on LinkedIn and attach a link to the content on my website.
  • Every once in a while, you may opt to share stats or highlights from your special offering -- your lead magnet. (Here's an example of a lead magnet in action: 100 Tips for Social Media Success.)
  • To obtain the lead magnet, you ask visitors to first fill out a quick form with their name, company name, email and perhaps other important information. Some sites opt for super simple information, other request a bit more.
  • If your lead magnet is truly supercalifragilistic, visitors will fill out your form. This form can easily be connected to your email database; Constant Contact and MailChimp have developed ready-made code for this exact process.
  • Via an automatic system (auto responder) your email engine sends along the lead magnet and an appropriate thank you or welcome message.

Tada! Now, you have grown your email list and been given permission to continue ongoing email outreach. In addition, you have just converted someone from a casual website visitor into a suspect. Your job is to create an ongoing nurture campaign, such as a monthly newsletter, weekly tip, or quarterly report to nurture the relationship. (I prefer the term nurture marketing rather than drip marketing.)

Get this: Sharing ongoing helpful content via email helps build credibility and influence. In fact, email marketing is twice as effective as cold calling, networking and trade shows, and four times more effective than social media alone. So give lead magnets a try and let their magic work for you!

About Sheri Fitts and ShoeFitts Marketing

Sheri Fitts presents keynote addresses, breakout sessions, webinars, and daylong boot camps. She engages audiences by sharing stories of her own experiences and experiments, successes and learning moments, as well as a sweeping range of marketing and social media strategy-based topics, weaving humor and sincerity into her delivery. Recently Sheri has launched a self-paced eCourse, Social Selling for Financial Advisors. Learn more about the course here.

ShoeFitts Marketing helps clients create unforgettable marketing to secure sales. The Portland, Oregon-based company is a consulting organization at heart, drawing on decades of experience in the financial services marketplace to identify, create and implement inspired marketing and social media strategies and solutions for its clients. ShoeFitts collaborates with people who recognize the need to differentiate in the vastly commoditized landscape of the financial services marketplace-focusing on financial service organizations, retirement plan advisors, and third party administrators.

As a training partner, ShoeFitts Marketing translates social media, branding, generational issues, business strategy and marketing into manageable steps for clients, their teams and all types of financial professionals. As an industry partner, ShoeFitts Marketing brings fresh content, strategy and engagement ideas to help clients win and nurture more profitable business.

For more information, contact Sheri Fitts at 844.746.3348. Visit ShoeFitts.com. Follow Sheri on Twitter at missfitts and on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com/in/sherifitts.

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