Selling IT Solutions by Using Social Media the Right Way

Most prospects see buying an IT solution as a major or mid-sized purchase for their businesses. This means that when selling IT solutions, your prospect has to gain trust in you and your business before they’re willing to make a purchase decision.

To convert prospects into paying customers, you need to nurture your relationship with them and with your marketplace as a whole. Building a community around your product or service and becoming influential in your niche is necessary for both on-line and off-line sales processes.

Your ultimate goal is to become a trusted advisor. This takes time; it isn’t something that happens overnight. You need to engage the prospects early within their purchasing cycles. Ideally, you want them to become aware of your product or service during their research stage.

Interacting with them this early means they’re not yet ready to buy, so you should not be selling IT solutions to them. That might sound counterintuitive to you, but research proves that relationship-selling works far better than trying to hard sell from the beginning. Early sales pressure will ultimately lead to rejection.

Building trust with your prospect, in order to sell them an IT solution later on, is achievable by using a variety of strategies in tandem with each other. For example:

• participation at conferences, tradeshows, and exhibitions

• networking within your niche and community

• sponsoring workshops, white papers, and other valuable informational and educational materials

• engaging prospects via social media

Here’s an extended look at the do’s and don’ts you need to respect in order to generate trust using social media when selling IT solutions.

Actions that Increase Trust

• Get to know your prospects individually. Listen to them in order to identify their specific needs.

• Check in and connect via your chosen social media platforms frequently.

• Provide content that informs and educates.

• Make recommendations to solve your prospect’s or customer’s needs. Give advice freely –even if it isn’t something you can use to sell a product or service.

• Open yourself up to discussions and debate – make sure your audience can fully participate via blog commenting, services/products reviews, and testimonials. User-generated content is necessary for building trust.

Actions that Drive Your Prospects or Customers Away

• Do not assume that one solution fits all. Listen to your prospects and tailor your responses to meet their individual needs.

• Do not try to sell something every time you check in. It will turn off your prospects, and you will lose their attention. They will unsubscribe and possibly flag you as a spammer.

• Do not provide stale content or rehash what is already out there. Blog posts, how to videos, comments, status updates, Tweets, and every piece of content you produce must add value.

• Do not use troubleshooting your prospect’s issues as an opportunity to sell them something. Be helpful and selfless. If you have a product or service that fits their needs, mention it but no hard selling.

• Do not pretend to be someone or something you aren’t. You have to be real and honest in order to get the most out of social media for your business.

If you follow these simple pieces of advice, you will find that your audience will appreciate your social media engagement more. This will lead to trust being generated for your business, service, or product. Moreover, you will in turn find selling IT solutions much easier when the prospect reaches the decision-making stage of the purchasing cycle.

Are you nervous about jumping into on-line engagement? Our community is a safe and supportive one, so why not leave a Comment below with your thoughts, ideas, and questions about how you might engage your niche when selling IT solutions.

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