Digital Marketing

MARKETING: Social Plus Selling Equals Success

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Social selling is the practice of using social media platforms to build relationships, engage with prospects, and generate leads. It focuses on nurturing trust and credibility rather than direct selling, often leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Increase your brand visibility. Social selling helps expand brand reach when you encourage and enable employees to share content and optimise their socal media profiles.

Generate high quality leads. By leveraging social media profilesbusinesses can easily identify and connect with potential customers who are most likely to be interested in their products.

Shorten the sales cycle. Social selling allows for faster and more efficient communication with prospects expediting relationship building and sales conversions.

Create deeper connections. Sales departments can build more authentic, personal relationships by researching and engaging with potential cliens showing genuine interest.

Boosts sales performance! Social selling is proven to be effectve with 51% being more likely to exceed sales targets and 78% exceeding the results of peers not using social selling. Basically, it works.

Here are some successful social selling case studies with high ROI – would these strategies improve the performance of your business’ marketing KPI and profit?

1. InContact By training half its sales team in social selling using LinkedIn and Eloqua, InContact achieved a 157% revenue increase within a year. The trained team also built a 160% larger sales pipeline compared to untrained colleagues.
2. IBM IBM implemented social selling through LinkedIn and Twitter, supported by a content calendar. This strategy resulted in a 4x year-on-year sales increase, showcasing the power of targeted social engagement.
3. Old Spice Old Spice’s personalised video campaign led to a 107% sales increase in three months, making it the top men’s body wash brand. The campaign demonstrated how creative social strategies can drive significant ROI.
4. AT&T By focusing on rebuilding relationships via social media, AT&T secured $47 million in new business within 18 months, directly attributed to their social selling efforts.
5. Homefield (Ecommerce) Homefield leveraged Twitter/X to promote vintage sports apparel, achieving the highest ROI among its social platforms by driving direct purchases through organic posts.

Have you employed Social Selling with your business? Was it successful?If you are interested in developing State Of The Art Digital Marketing for your business please contact me.

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Steve Coulter is a four decade sales and marketing expert. From cold canvassing prospects to add to a Car Sales database in 1990 to e-commerce success via WordPress and Woo Commerce websites more recently. Please contact me for State Of The Art Digital Marketing ideas.

ADVERTISING: Old School Ogilvy For Today

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David Ogilvy, often called ‘The Father of Advertising’ revolutionised the industry with his iconic campaigns. A great observer of detail, his constantly finessed drafts and final adverts combined meticulous research, storytelling and creativity to captivate and resonate with audiences.Here are some of his greatest works and iconic campaigns and how his style can still inspire contemporary advertising. As an enthusiast of old school copy ads from the Fifties and Sixties they are published here complete:
Rolls Royce (“At 60 Miles an Hour”) Known for its now legendary powerful headline, “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock” it highlighted product specifics and luxury.
Dove (“One Quarter Moisturising Cream”) Ogilvy repositioned Dove which was struggling for recognition and market share as a “beauty bar,” not just soap, elevating its status and creating a long lasting brand identity.
Guinness (“The Guinness Guide to Oysters”) This series of educational ads paired Guinness with food, blending information with elegance to enhance its sophistication.
Schweppes (“Commander Whitehead”) Featuring the company’s president, this ad exuded authenticity and sophistication, tying the brand to exclusivity.Hathaway Shirt (“The Man in the Hathaway Shirt”). Featuring a man with an eye patch, this ad used “story appeal” to intrigue viewers. The mysterious element drew attention, making the brand memorable.

So here’s the meat in the sandwich as a friend says.

Contemporary Applications of Ogilvy’s Style :

Storytelling with Visual Hooks: Modern brands can emulate Ogilvy’s “story appeal” by using intriguing visuals or unexpected elements in social media campaigns.

Data Driven Headlines & Content: Like Ogilvy’s Rolls Royce ad, brands should craft specific, benefit driven headlines for digital ads to boost engagement.

Authenticity in Branding: Using real people (e.g., founders) in campaigns resonates today, especially on platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram.

Personal Brand: The ‘Commander Whitehead’ as pictured in the Schweppes adverts is an obvious spin-off personal branding opportunity today.

Educational Content Marketing: Ogilvy’s Guinness and Dove campaigns show the power of educating consumers about product benefits aka solving a problem too. A strategy effective in blogs and video content.

In summary, David Ogilvy’s timeless principles truthful storytelling, captivating visuals, and product focused messaging remain essential for modern marketers.

Who are your advertising and copywriting heroes?

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Specialising in effective website and digital marketing content, Steve Coulter is a U.K. based copywriter and content professional with a lifetime interest in advertising and marketing.

MARKETING: Dragon’s Den 101

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I was watching Dragon’s Den (Shark Tank in US) and a lady pitching her business proposal had already failed to answer what her projected profit was going to be this year – although she did recall Year One and Two numbers. Another Dragon asked what her Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) was and she didn’t know what that meant or the value. So, if any reader is thinking about visiting the ‘Den, know your turnover, gross and net profits and here’s a list of useful sales and marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to understand with a brief explanation:

  1. Return on Investment (ROI): Measures the profitability of marketing efforts by comparing revenue generated to the cost of marketing activities.
  2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Calculates the total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses.
  3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Estimates the total revenue expected from a customer over their entire relationship with the business.
  4. Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
  5. Sales Growth: Measures the increase in revenue over a specific period, indicating the effectiveness of marketing efforts in driving business growth.
  6. Organic Traffic: Tracks the number of visitors coming to your website through unpaid search results, reflecting the success of SEO strategies.
  7. Lead Generation: Measures the number of potential customers showing interest in your products or services.
  8. Social Media Engagement: Includes metrics like likes, shares, comments, and followers, indicating brand health and audience interaction.
  9. Email Marketing Performance: Tracks metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates for email campaigns.
  10. Brand Awareness: Measures how recognisable your brand is to consumers, often through metrics like brand mentions and website traffic.
These ten simple to calculate KPIs provide a comprehensive view of marketing performance, from financial impact to customer behaviour and brand perception.
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Please contact me about any aspect of improving your business sales, online and offline marketing and growth aspirations.