Filling Your Sales Funnel with Social Media Leads

Posted by JasonB on July 10, 2009

Many businesses are attempting to use Social Media to generate B2B leads, but how do you actually move a prospect from “social networking land” onto your sales persons’ prospect list?

Set Your Net Wide

The first step is to ensure that prospects searching online encounter your brand in places OTHER than your corporate website.    Today, business people use industry blogs, forums and networking sites to find information MORE than surfing corporate sites.     So, to start driving leads, you need to be where people are looking.   Observe the graphic below.   Figure A illustrates an organization with only a corporate website online.   In this scenario, the only way a prospect would have exposure to this company is if they find and visit its’ site directly.   The web is a big place. 

Figure B illustrates an organization capitalizing on simple social media tools to cast a wide net of exposure across the web.  With employees on LinkedIn, a Facebook page, etc, the chances of a prospect encountering your company online is much, much greater.

Provide a Reason (and a way) to Connect

Let’s assume a prospect finds your Facebook page.   Or, a video you’ve posted on YouTube.  Or, your blog.   Either way, they’re NOT a prospect yet.  They’re a person staring at your message wondering if it’s worth reading further.    The next step in turning social media visitors into B2B leads is to form a relationship.  And, the one of the simplest and least risky relationships to form is one between a publisher of information, and their subscribers.  

Quality, useful, free information is still a hot item.   By providing good industry information via your social sites, visitors will consider coming back for more.   Encourage visitors to become a fan of your Facebook page.  Ask visitors to subscribe to your blog.   Place a call-to-action, with a link, at the end of your video on YouTube.    Advertise that fans/subscribers will receive beneficial, usable industry information if they sign up.  Give them the promise of something more, and a means to receive that information.

Capture Info, Append, Cleanse

An email address, contact name, or company name may be all the information you receive when someone reaches out to your company on a social site. Appending this information is the final step in qualifying a social media lead.   

There are a variety of tools and methods available to help you match an email address to a real person.  An easy, quick way is simply to search for that email address on LinkedIn.   If the address doesn’t produce results, try the company name within the address (ex: try searching for “ABC Company” if the email address is john.smith@ABCcompany.com).     Take a few minutes to look up a company description on LinkedIn or the company’s corporate site.   If it appears to be a fit for your product or service, bingo, you now have a social media lead.   

Placing a cleansing call or email to a prospect will further verify the quality of the lead. 

Happy hunting.  And please, subscribe to our blog for future posts about generating leads for your business.