The world of selling and recruitment has changed drastically over the years. There’s something called Social Selling and if you don’t get on board, you, your employment provider and jobseekers will get left behind. If you haven’t heard of social selling, it’s when you use your online social network to find the right prospect, build relationships and sell more. And in your case, find the right employers and place more people into work. Because you’re dealing with businesses, the best social platform to use is LinkedIn.
This doesn’t mean that you stop picking up the phone, emailing and door knocking. But using these prospecting strategies in combination to social selling is magic.
Here are some useful stats:
98% of sales reps with more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections meet or surpass their quota
78% of salespeople using social media perform better than their peers
IBM increased their sales by 400% thanks to their inbound social selling program
If the above stats are not enough to convince you to get on the social selling bandwagon, then I’m going to give you four compelling reasons why you need to use LinkedIn as part of your reverse marketing strategy.
1. Build Trust, Awareness, and Likability
First of all, you’re able to network with anyone, anywhere, at any time of the day just by using your mobile phone or PC. This is great news for some of those introverts out there. But also, for people to make purchasing decisions, they need to know, like and trust you, before doing business with you. And the best way to get employers to know you and what you’re all about, is through LinkedIn. The more visible you are, the more value you share, the more helpful you are, the more familiar you become, the easier it is to build employer relationships and get them to listen to what you have to say.
2. Target, Research and Fill your Pipeline with Employers
When it comes to effective reverse marketing, it’s about targeting the right industry and matching it to the right jobseeker. On LinkedIn, you can do that. There are 500 million users on LinkedIn. You can almost search for anyone from frontline staff, as well as middle to top management. You can check out their activity, interests, types of posts they like and share, as well as where they have worked. Also the more employers you reach out to and educate about employment services, the more likely you are to fill your pipeline with great opportunities.
3 .Get Through the Gate Keeper
“You have to fill out an online form.” We have all heard this one. Do you want to know how I cracked the code to this statement? I used LinkedIn to get to those decision makers who have a whole complicated online protocol. Also, LinkedIn is a great way to get through the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is that person who is not letting you get through to their boss when you ring up, and makes every excuse under the sun as to why this person is not available. Once you connect with that hiring manager on LinkedIn, you can message them directly. If your message is compelling enough, they may respond. One tip, make sure that the message is not spammy and is more about them than you.
4. Set Yourself as the Authority in your Industry
People want to do business with those who are knowledgeable in their industry. On LinkedIn, you’re able to write or share various posts and articles which educate, inspire and connect with people. Think about the sorts of things you can educate or inspire employers about? Imagine writing a post that starts like this, “5 reasons why your business needs to hire someone with a disability.” Or you can share a motivational quote or a good news story about a jobseeker’s success that was already shared by your marketing team.
By Rana Kordahi
Would you like to learn how you can use LinkedIn to help more people into work? Then be sure to register for our next webinar. FIND OUT MORE
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