In the B2B sale, I think it’s useful to compare social media with offline networking.

Offline networking activities can’t be judged solely on their relationship to this quarter’s revenue. However, and especially in big-ticket sales, relationships are crucial to success. They take months or years to develop, because they have to do with establishing trust and communication between people who do not intrinsically have reason to trust each other.

Not every B2B sale benefits from a personal network of connections. Likewise, the role of social media in the B2B sales process will vary greatly from company to company. It may not be 100% about this quarter’s direct lead generation.

Obviously, it makes sense to invest sales and marketing resources into a portfolio — invest the lion’s share in short term tactics to find people who are in pain today. Investments in other relationships may take years to develop and won’t necessarily unfold along a plan I can control.

Christie

Research is just starting to become available that shows social media is effective in this influencing role. Many marketers call this “branding.”

I’ve also been searching for evidence that B2B social marketing can be directly linked to leads or sales. Unfortunately, all I’ve been able to find so far are a few anecdotal examples, rather than any quantifiable data.

Based on that lack of quantifiable data, one could draw the conclusion that there are more direct (efficient?) marketing tactics for driving leads and sales.

If you or your blog readers have any quantifiable data that proves the link between B-to-B marketing via social media and the generation of sales leads and the conversion of those leads into sales, I sure would appreciate learning about it.

Thanks,
M. H. (Mac) McIntosh
McIntosh@Sales-Lead-Experts.com