Sales reps enjoy communicating via Twitter, and if you don’t, you should. There are so many opportunities available through Twitter. For starters, it raises brand awareness, allows you to create and engage with specific audiences, and provides countless insights into the minds of your target market. But while all of that is great, make no mistake – the real goal of using Twitter is to funnel sales.
Twitter provides sales reps the best of both worlds: an effective way to communicate and share information combined with a powerful selling application.
So how do you get your followers to go from tweeting to buying? Here are five tips to convert your followers into your clients, fast.
1. Assess your audience.
It has never been easier to build a network appropriate to your selling goals. To get started, make a list of your customers, prospects, competitors and thought leaders and start following them.
Once you establish your foundation, Twitter will suggest additional people and businesses to add. As you prospect, continue to grow your Twitter list. As you run lead generation campaigns, add contacts to your Twitter list. Make any new prospects in your pipeline new additions to your Twitter feed.
2. Position yourself as an expert.
On Twitter, share blog posts you have written, articles you have contributed to other publications, and conversations you are engaged in with LinkedIn groups. This demonstrates that you are up-to-date on your industry’s trends and involved in current issues that affect your prospects. Share the information you are creating and curating during your daily Twitter practice. Then use that information to engage with others and start conversations.
3. Use your network to uncover your target audiences’ issues.
Tweets hold a lot more insights than just quirky thoughts and personal photos from your prospects. They can show you what really matters to your target market. What are people talking about? What discussions are they following? What questions are they asking? Where are they looking for answers? Dig around and pay attention to the topic and themes that emerge. This will help you uncover ways you can swoop in to help solve their most pressing business issues.
4. Be timely.
Once you uncover your audience’s business concerns, you will want to respond in a timely, helpful and friendly way. I recommend setting up a free Hootsuite account to facilitate checking your Twitter account several times a day. This will allow you to address your audience in as close to real time as possible. If someone is seeking an answer from you, in most cases, they want it immediately – even more immediately than on email.
5. Always offer a solution.
By this time all of your Twitter-based detective work will have paid off. You know what’s troubling your prospects and you have the perfect solution to help them. Now is the critical moment where you offer to take the conversation off line and explore a solution.
Whether you are offering an article, ebook, webinar, or a tidbit of advice, share your message with a well-crafted tweet that contains direct language and a strong call to action to convert from tweeting to talking.
Here’s an example of a tweet that converts for a lead generation campaign: “Q2 is almost finished. Are you on track to meet your numbers? Download our eBook and help tune-up your sales ow.ly/wqkUJ.”
And if you just want to have a phone conversation, ask for one!
Twitter isn’t just about sharing quirky thoughts and photos. By paying attention to your target audience’s interactions, you can move from just engaging to selling.
