Not only has the physical world of selling changed, but virtual selling or social selling is also here to stay. The pandemic forced B2B sales to pivot quickly. However, while many businesses adjusted their content strategy and sales strategy, according to The Content Marketing Institute, most companies failed in one key area, even with some success with their changes. “Less than a third [of the B2B businesses they researched] dug into customer-focused work.” Failing to review what the customer wants ultimately will lead to reduced sales and potential customer losses.
The hard truth is that what the customer wants is not salespeople sending templated messages on LinkedIn. Customers crave personal connections.
But creating those personal relationships takes time, nurturing those leads, and getting those sales appointments. Thanks to AI personalization, it’s not only faster and easier, but with tailored AI messaging, B2B companies can boost their social selling dramatically on LinkedIn.
What is Social Selling?
Using your social network to locate good prospects, create trusting relationships, and ultimately achieve your sales goals is what social selling is all about. This sales strategy allows for more effective sales lead creation and prospecting and the elimination of cold calling. On top of that, building and maintaining relationships is more effective when you are part of a trusted network.
Social Selling on LinkedIn
Is LinkedIn the ideal platform for social selling? According to surveys reported by LinkedIn, 89% of top-performing salespeople believe that LinkedIn is essential for generating leads, and 70% specifically use LinkedIn for business reasons. Not to mention, those who lead in social selling create 45% more sales opportunities than their peers.
The importance of those relationship-building social selling methods also shows up with decision-makers. To put it another way, 90% of decision-makers say they simply do not respond to cold calls, ever.
LinkedIn new limitations & how personalization can help
If you are using one of LinkedIn automation tools out there (e.g. Linked Helper, Co-Pilot, Meet Alfred, Lusha, …) or actively using LinkedIn Sale Nav, you have noticed that LinkedIn started to limit its users to send only 100-400 invites per week, which in a very competitive B2B marketplace leaves you very short of potential, qualified leads.
It is critical to be highly targeted and engage with strategically personalized messages that drive replies and engagement.
Our results show that content personalization can increase your connectivity rate on LinkedIn by two times and your reply rate by at least three times.
As we mentioned earlier, after those initial messages, a multi-tiered approach to personalization takes things to a whole new level and dramatically improves your sales results.
Instead of adding yet another tool, Personize streamlines the systems, the processes, and the time needed to take care of all the moving pieces to get your leads into your sales funnel.
For example, even the most efficient salesperson takes about five to ten minutes to draft a customized message for every prospect. So keep your sales team productivity levels high, and get those messages out much faster.
Personize syncs the messages inside your tools, removing those repetitive five to ten-minute tasks out of their day. Your sales team members review the messages before sending them, fine-tuning the content as need, taking about 1% of the time for every message. Not only does it reduce the workload for your salespeople, but it also gets those messages out much faster.
With Personize connected to your CRM and the LinkedIn accounts of your sales professionals, every salesperson will be able to do a more effective follow-up to qualified leads and connect with more people than they could do without the help of an AI.
Companies that utilize AI personalization for B2B sales are the ones that will stand the test of time
After a forced pivot from the pandemic, consumers want more than minor personalization but want connection. Adapting to what the customer wants, and speaking to them on a personal level, converts potential customers into buyers.
Decision-makers no longer open or respond to cold messages, so multi-tiered personalized sales funnels are a must to get and keep their attention. But, it’s a time-consuming, labour-intensive process if doing everything manually.
How can personize help?
Adding Personize into your sales process to generate personalized LinkedIn messaging and connecting that to your existing tools will develop those leads effectively to sales meetings, and best of all, it’s completely automated.
While it’s an AI platform, Personize writes like your salespeople: authentic, enticing, and personalized. The more it writes for your people, the more it improves at generating messages that convert. With highly personalized messages, it automates the process while still keeping it personal, increases the reply rate by 334%, and has a 530% click rate increase.
You can start connecting with more people with less effort today. Book a meeting today, and our experts will guide you through our services to see how it can help your team turn more leads into customers.
