Social Selling for Print Companies

Are you looking for advice on a social selling strategy that is built specifically for print service providers?

A reality today is that social media has transcended its initial purpose of solely connecting people and has become a vital tool for businesses across every industry. For print companies, social media presents a unique opportunity to showcase capabilities, connect with potential customers, and ultimately, close more print sales. This article goes into more detail on how sales representatives at print companies like yours can leverage social media for prospecting, engaging with leads, and securing new business.

 

Understanding Social Selling

What is Social Selling? Social selling is the process of using social media platforms to find, connect with, engage, and nurture sales prospects. It’s about leveraging your social network to build relationships that lead to sales opportunities. For print companies, this means using social media not just for marketing purposes but as a strategic tool in the sales process.

Arm those print sales reps with social!

 

1. Identify the Right Platforms

The first step in social selling is identifying where your potential clients spend their time. LinkedIn, with its professional focus, is a goldmine for B2B sales, including those in the print industry. However, don’t overlook platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, where visual content can highlight your printing capabilities, culture and personality. 

 

2. Build a Strong Brand Presence

It’s important to ensure your company profile and personal sales rep profiles are complete and professional. Your profiles should clearly communicate your value proposition and the benefits of your print solutions, products and services. Share examples of your work, customer testimonials, and informative content that positions your company as an industry leader. Regular updates and engaging visuals can help attract more followers and increase your visibility.

Doing this also creates believability, trust, inspiration and softens the prospect for sales reps when they connect with these new potential customers.

 

3. Engage with Your Audience

Social selling is more than just posting content; it’s about engaging with your audience. Comment on posts, share relevant content, and participate in discussions to show your expertise and interest in the industry. Use hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts and follow industry-related topics to stay informed and contribute meaningfully.

Now when it comes to the sales side of all of this you’ll find a big crossover between marketing and sales at print companies. The fact is that your sales reps must be engaging with prospects and customers. What you don’t want to do is create restrictive silos on behavior that limits a reps ability to drive relationships forward.

We get it, marketers are protective of their content, so the best thing to do if this is your situation and create a plan in collaboration with marketing and sales to make this fluid and proactive.

 

4. Leverage Advanced Search Features

Platforms like LinkedIn offer advanced search features that allow you to filter users by industry, company size, role, job title, and more. Use these features to identify potential leads and learn more about their business needs and challenges. This information can be invaluable when you reach out, allowing you to tailor your message and offer solutions that resonate.

This is actually one of the most critical things a print sales rep can do. It gets even more valuable when you do this using a Sales Navigator subscription. And even more when pairing it with advertising so you can get in front of more prospects at scale.

Many print companies are familiar with Zoom info to curate leads lists and this search function on LinkedIn is very similar to that. So definitely use it!

 

5. Provide Value First

The essence of social selling lies in building relationships by providing value. Share insights, offer helpful advice, and provide solutions to common industry challenges. By focusing on being helpful rather than making a sale, you build trust and credibility, which are crucial for long-term relationships.

If we’re being honest, the best sales people love to talk, and talk a lot! So jumping into conversations online, sharing advice and answering questions really shouldn’t be a problem.

 

6. Use Direct Messaging Wisely

Once you’ve engaged with potential print customers through public comments and shared content, consider moving the conversation to direct messaging. Personalized messages that reference previous interactions and offer specific insights or solutions are more likely to be well-received. Remember, the goal is to start a conversation, not to make a hard sell.

We say use this wisely because people hate it when they are cold messaged. It’s so much easier to start a conversation with someone who is familiar with you and trusts you to some degree. Or even better, if you’re doing this right the prospects will be coming to you!

 

7. Monitor Social Listening

Social listening involves monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, and relevant industry keywords. This can help you identify new sales opportunities, stay ahead of industry trends, and engage in conversations that could lead to new business.

The thing is that this is more of an advanced approach. There are social media listening tools out there, but they are expensive and are not intuitive. But you can use simple tools such as Google Alerts, Hootsuite Streams that follow certain hashtags or similar approaches that are actually manageable for most print businesses.

 

8. Measure and Refine Your Strategy

Like any sales strategy, social selling requires monitoring and refinement. Use analytics tools to track engagement, lead generation, and conversion rates. Experiment with different types of content, posting times, and engagement strategies to see what works best for your audience. Continuously refining your approach will help you maximize the ROI of your social selling efforts.

Now that we have gotten that out of our system and it’s really a best practice to track, analyze and refine based on your analysis, we understand that is highly unrealistic for most print companies. We didn’t want to leave it out, but we can assure very few print companies are doing this as a part of their social selling, sales at all and in most cases it’s not even done for their marketing. So again, like we said, we had to say it, but don’t actually expect most to do it. And you’re really not going to suffer without it.

 

To recap, Social selling offers print companies a powerful way to connect with potential clients in the digital space. By building a strong brand presence, engaging with your target audience, and leveraging the unique features of social media platforms, sales representatives can uncover new opportunities and drive business growth. Remember, social selling is a marathon, not a sprint. Building and nurturing relationships takes time, but the potential rewards are well worth the effort.