What is the impact of social selling on sales revenue?

This is an old and yet simple and powerful case study showing the impact that social selling can have on today’s businesses.

In 2013, the Aberdeen Group published research comparing the sales performance of organizations based on their social selling maturity.

‘Best-in-Class’ social selling companies saw a 16.7% year-on-year revenue increase, compared with just 4.1% for ‘Industry Average’ companies and a decrease of 8.7% for ‘Laggards’.

So everyone can understand the revenue differences between best in class and others, let’s consider 3 companies in the UAE. All things being equal, they have the same size, same industry, etc. except the way they use social selling in their sales strategy.

They all generate 10 million AED in revenue this year.

Next year’s expected revenue from each company is:

• 11,67 Million AED for the ‘Best-in-Class’ social selling company
• 10,41 Million AED for the ‘Industry average’ company
• 9,13 Million AED for the ‘Laggards’ company

12% is the minimum revenue difference between a company with a best in class social selling program and other companies in the industry.

It is 1.2 Million AED in extra revenue collected by the ‘Best in class’ social selling company.

Here are other positive results that social selling best in class companies saw at the time:

• 79% of sales rep achieved quota in the last
• 8.9% year over year increase in average deal size
• Average sales cycle reduced by 0.7%

Here are what Social selling Best in class had in common:

• Internal “social selling” evangelist for spreading internal use, monitoring and best practices of social media
• Internal subject matter experts (SMEs) specifically focused on social media
• Company policy in place for employee use of social media
• Regular training of sales employees to engage in online conversation with prospective or current customers
• Social media usage as a platform to gain and share insights both internally and externally
• Use of customer / prospect data to drive marketing and selling messaging
• Private “deal room” or workspace used by both buyer and seller
• Data driven customer engagement strategies through personalized social communications

Which tier do you think your business belongs to?

Here are some examples of companies in the UAE and the Middle East that have adopted Social Selling.

If you would like to assess your social selling maturity and take it to the next level or if you know of any other company having implemented social selling successfully and would like to share, contact us and let us know.

Source:

Aberdeen Group – Social Selling: Leveraging the Power of User-Generated Content to Optimize Sales Results