Social Media Study: Social Selling Influences 75-Percent of B2B Buyers

Eloqua, a marketing technology provider, released in their eBook, “Grande Guide to Social Selling,” some interesting information on social selling in the B2B realm.

According to a study cited in their eBook, 75% of B2B buyers claimed social media would likely have influence on a future purchase. (Tweet this)

This trend of social selling definitely hasn’t creeped up on us, I’ve written many blog posts on how social media and social selling is taking over business by storm.

If that statistic doesn’t convince you that your company ought to be involved in social media or social selling, chances are, that your competitors have.

According to The Sales Management Association, 65% of businesses are already using social media in their sales efforts (Tweet this), and 55% believe their sales organization would be more productive if they had a larger social presence .

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that a company can solely survive through selling exclusively via social media, traditional selling practices have their place. I’m just advocating that companies cannot ignore that social media needs to play at least some (if not a significant) part of their sales strategy. (Tweet this)

Social selling won’t happen overnight; as do most programs, it takes time to nurture and build your social media repertoire.

Alex Shootman, President of Eloqua, left us with this great quote:

“Everything and nothing has changed about modern sales and marketing. Twenty years ago, if a sales person asked me how to find buyers, I would tell them to go hang out where the buyers are and be interesting. Social media is now where buyers hang out, making it possible to grow and enrich your network like never before.”

Below is an infographic found in their eBook that I found had some good tips, so I decided to share it with you.

–Lance Brown