FreshNetworks Blog

Tim continues his series on Selling Social Media.

You have spent time building an understanding of the business requirements. You have built a short list of prioritised needs; these could be, for example, to grow online revenue, cut support costs, enhance innovation, build the brand, grow customer service, gain partner insight, etc.

It’s now time to move to the next phase of the sales cycle, namely ‘Propose the Solution’. This is the phase that links these business ‘needs’ to the specifics of the social media solution.

A useful memory device that I use in this phase is the acronym ‘NFAR’. Against each Need, align it to a Feature, then explain the Advantage, and finally gauge the Reaction : ‘NFAR’. I use variants of this process depending upon the dynamics of each individual meeting situation, but the basic principle remains the same.

Here’s an example. I am working with an organisation in the air travel sector that needs to market itself outside of the ‘bargain’ holiday brand, i.e. away from its slightly blemished association with ‘laddish’ type short breaks, particularly to some of the cheaper European city destinations, where young people get too much publicity by getting drunk and misbehaving. The marketing director wants to refocus his customers upon those clients (the ‘silent majority’ as he calls them) that enjoy the quieter and more cultural weekend breaks to these same destinations, perhaps visiting museums and local artifacts.

I have proposed a social media solution that builds a vibrant and engaged online community based around this silent majority. It will add tremendous value to them as they share with others their various trip ideas, stories, pictures, blogs, videos, etc.

Let’s look at one social media feature for this social media solution – i.e. the voting feature. So, for example, this will give the opportunity for the community to vote upon the best city museum to visit. Within my NFAR device, this is a social media “Feature”.

I raise this Feature idea, and explain the “Advantage” to the client: The advantage of the voting feature is that this is a simple-to-use capability, that will entice even the most sceptical casual user to simply press a button that registers their vote and, voila, before they know it they are engaging with the others in the community. Even better, if this Advantage can be quantified (e.g. we will gain 1000 extra members of the community) then I am motoring towards a ‘close’, or sale.

But to check that this is of real value to the marketing director, I need to test his agreement that the Feature will have the Benefit, i.e. does he ‘get it’? So, I check, by asking him his “Reaction”. And he says that he loves it, and can really see the value of polling to engage with the community.

Of course, there are many other social media features that I could mention, that could have a similar impact. The polling feature is a simple example that I use in this blog to demonstrate the principle.

I am not yet moving towards the sales close (that will be soon), but first I am methodically addressing the business needs with the appropriate social media features that are relevant, and getting the tick-in-the-box from the client that the social media solution is the answer to his requirements.

Read all our posts on Selling social media here.

Tim continues his series on Selling Social Media.

So, we’ve got the attention of the stakeholder to discuss using social media within the organisation. By seeing a glimpse of some of the incredible achievements in social media for other industries or competitors, this has earned the right for a more detailed conversation with him. It’s now time to dive into more detail with him, and to align some of the various social media benefits against the unique requirements of this particular stakeholder. But what are the unique requirements?

This phase of the sales process is known as ‘determining the needs’.

Let’s use a real-life scenario and a brief recap. Say you have used the ‘elevator pitch’ to a Marketing Director in the travel sector and highlighted that Marriott achieved an additional $5m sales from people that accessed Bill Marriott’s executive blog. This is an impressive statement of fact, and you have his attention; and as a result he puts an hour in the diary for a more detailed chat on the subject.

What do you do now? The biggest mistake is to go to the one-hour meeting and then continue blindly selling the proposition, because you don’t yet know what’s going to be the business driver for this particular stakeholder. When marketing any service (and social media is no different), everybody’s individual business needs and priorities will be different. Grow revenue, cut costs, enhance innovation, improve customer service, and so on; it’s a long list of possibilities.

So, the elevator pitch grabbed his attention, but that won’t be the reason that social media may work for his particular organisation. The specific needs and objectives will be absolutely unique to this organisation, and it is your job to align these unique needs to the social media possibilities.

The rock band Weezer has a great single out at the moment. It’s called “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. The brackets are in the title. I love this title because it encapsulates the blundering teenage angst that we can still remember from when we were that age. Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Similarly, the biggest mistake at this stage is to launch into the one hour conversation with a pushy “I want you to do this because….”, as if you were that teenager all over again! Instead, in this phase of the sales process it is time for a more consultative approach. You ask the questions, and then listen carefully to the answers. A bit like the doctor diagnosing the patient, you take the role of the consultant, and determine the business priorities that are most relevant for this stakeholder.

Read all our posts on Selling social media here.