The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

The most common frustration I hear from B2B sales and marketing leaders is their inability to secure first appointments with qualified prospects. The common sentiment that I hear over and over again is this.

“We do really well as a sales team when we have an opportunity to tell our story. But we’re just not getting enough at-bats.”

For several years, traditional outbound prospecting methods (cold calling and email) in B2B selling have become less productive. The average cold call success rate in 2024 is 4.82%.

This statistic includes efforts to call into all sizes of companies and levels of target contacts. As you call larger companies and higher-level decision-makers, this number can plummet to less than 1%.

And email isn’t much better. Over 60% of all cold outbound emails go unopened by the target prospect.

There’s no longer a debate on whether social media is an effective way to remain relevant in today’s busy and modern online world. Social media has come a long way since the mid-2000s, where users simply used it to share photographs and “check-in.”  

Today, smart sellers incorporate social media into their sales strategy as an additional way to connect with prospects. This allows you to:

• Build rapport
• Pinpoint specific prospects
• Establish yourself as a thought leader

Through likes, comments, shares, and posts, you provide your insights to both prospects and current customers and allow for more engagement. Social media is a valuable tool for driving sales, but first, you must identify the most-used platforms for your ideal customer.

Social media gives salespeople opportunities they just didn't have several years ago — even three years ago!

It's much easier to connect with prospects now, and as long as you do it right, you can see significant results (i.e. landing more appointments with target prospects).

Here are three simple steps to get started with social selling.

Social selling is on its way to equaling (and possibly overtaking) conventional selling in the near future.

One study stated that with more than 3 billion people using social media worldwide in 2021, the customer base is right where social salespeople want them.

Way back in 2020, before the world had gone haywire due to COVID and in the early days of the pandemic, Facebook sales by American Facebook users hit over 18%.

That was then. This is now.

While the dreaded days of cold calling may be over in the marketing world, it could be said that it merely switched mediums — from the telephone to chat apps. If your idea of 'B2B marketing' is sending unsolicited DMs, is that really any different from cold calling?

While cold outreach on social media is a popular technique in our modern world, it's not exactly the most productive, nor the most fruitful. As mentioned above, it's really just cold calling in a new medium, and while your salespeople don't have to deal with slammed phones, that doesn't make it any more viable as a sales technique.

Social selling is a modern approach to marketing that's built around existing relationships, and as such, it works much better. In this article, we’re going to explore the concept of social selling, how it fits into the sales process, and how you can leverage this sales technique to help your business thrive.

Social selling is the process of leveraging your social network to sell products or services.

In fact, 78% of social sellers outsell competitors who don't use social media. The most important thing to remember when doing social selling is that each platform is different. What works on one platform may not work on another. It’s important to understand how each platform works before trying to sell on it.

Successful social selling can lead to significant growth for your business. In fact, the right tactics can do more than sell products, but provide a foundation of credibility and confidence that will bolster your brand as a whole.

This all sounds very appealing, but how can you actually go about enhancing your own social selling efforts?

Let’s look at a few methods that separate the pros from the rest of the pack.

Are you tired of getting nowhere with cold calls and emails? Your business needs new customers, but cold traffic takes a long time to convert. Some people won't bother responding to you.

Social selling can help. This sales method focuses on relationship building through social media.

Social selling doesn't involve spamming your way in front of people. Instead, you get to know people before making an offer.

You may know a connection for several months before they become a client. Social selling ensures they remember you fondly and become warm leads.

We'll dive into everything you need to know about social selling. Let's get started with strategies and resources to help you succeed.

Successful sales is a difficult multi-level process that requires a lot of effort, knowledge, and attention. Sometimes methods and approaches that showed good results in the past don’t work anymore.

In this case, there's a need to search for something new and reliable, something that will rescue the situation. That’s why it's important to follow sales trends and consider using new features before competitors. It always helps to be one step ahead and earn the reputation of the leader.

In this article, we'll take a close look at 5 new and already popular eye-catching trends in sales.

Social selling is a powerful part of the approach in our now transparent sales landscape.

By now, every salesperson should be embracing LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook, as they plan to approach and attempt to engage with new business prospects.

Whether you choose to use paid services or choose to navigate social media on your own, it’s a platform where you can earn trust and establish credibility with your very best prospects.

It’s also a platform that if used incorrectly, could damage your credibility with your very best prospects.