So what do you do when someone engages you on a social media platform? Hopefully you respond and give them the info they requested, answered their question or directed them somewhere to get an answer. But then what’s the next step? Hopefully you don’t turn them over to your sales force without first determining where they are in your sales funnel.
Does everyone within your organization understand your different stages in the selling cycle? Most sales funnels were set up for developing traditional leads. A question you must ask yourself is whether social media leads fit into your existing process and if so where? As a rule, social media leads take longer to convert because they are engaging you earlier in the process.
Nurturing social leads needs to be handled differently.This will include decision-making content designed to answer questions, overcome objections and provide opportunities that arise during the purchasing process.
I recently read a good post by Nichole Kelly in Social Media Examiner, 5 Tips for Moving Social Media Leads Into the Sales Funnel that I thought might be of interest to you. She makes useful points from understanding the sales funnel to optimizing the path to conversion and explains why social media leads need to be nurtured differently.
What do you think? Have you successfully converted social media fans and followers into revenue? Are you still trying to figure out how to do this?