Social Media Sales and Marketing Revolution

The Social Sales Revolution: 7 Steps to Get Ahead

1Get in The

GameKnow Your Customer Hangouts

Build your Social

Market Value

First Friends, Then Leads

Connect With Social

Intelligence

Tweet-up Your Pipeline

Get Together, Sell Smarter

The power is in the hands of the buyerEarn credibility and respect to be a recommender - be helpful – trusted advisor

2 3 4 5 6 7

Build your Social Market Value

A social savvy rep needs to:• Join social dialog

• Build credibility

• Have experience

• Know the industry

• Be transparent

2PHOTO BY KEXINO

Build your Social

Market Value

3

Case Study:

190,000+CUSTOMER

S84,000+ SERVERS

4,500+ RACKERS

8 GLOBAL DATA CENTERS

120 +COUNTRIE

S

60%FORTUNE® 100

OFTHE

WE SERVE OVER

Annualized Revenue

OVER $1.2BILLION $$$$

OPEN TECHNOLOGY AT WEB SCALE

Choice, flexibility and freedom from vendor lock-in

SEAMLESS PORTFOLIOPublic Cloud, Private Cloud,

Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting

Credibility > Selling

4

5

Recommendations

Relationships

Referrals

Inject social into the demand funnel to accelerate deals

6

SEM

Trade ShowsOnline Display

Events

Webinars

Demos

Whitepapers

Blogs

Email

Videos SEO

Qualified Leads

LoyalCUSTOMERS

Sales

7

Department involvement

BEFORE

Marketing

NOW

Marketing

Sales

8

THROUGH

DecisionConsiderationAwareness

SharePoint Tuesday – Real life use case of Social Value

AdviseListenIntro

GroupsFollowConnect

prospect with social

platforms

prospects and have

them follow us

to prospects

for feedback

How we do it

BuildContent

AdviseListen

prospects on social

media

Including case

studies, webinars and more

We train our sales teams to think and act social

How to:Build personalized social profiles on multiple platforms

Engage directly with

recommendations and relationships

Join groups and gain credibility

Build contacts by territory and customer list

Involve prospects in the conversation

Build and maintain relationships

Research and monitor social

media

Make your sales team:1. Effective

2. Social

3. Self-reliant

13

14

The Power of

Recommendations

on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Provides a Connection to Trusted AdviceWork colleagues are the most widely trusted source of recommendations.

Vendor salespeople

Vendor websites

IT forums and message boards

Consultants

IT publications (CNET, ZDnet, etc.)

Industry analysts (Gartner/Forrester/IDC)

Work colleagues / professional network

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

22%

23%

51%

58%

59%

80%

93%

Base: All IT survey respondents (N = 800).

% Who Would Trust a Recommendation From:

“When deciding whether to purchase a particular software product for your company or institution, do you trust recommendations from the following sources?”

IT Software Study – March 2011

Rackspace vs. Company X

554Recommendations

17KFollowers

We failed before we succeeded

How we first failed:• Our initial approach was too

aggressive in scale• Mass mandate failed

• No instant results

• More planning needed

• Disconnect: tying social to

quotas

How we succeeded

• A pilot team that

• Understood relationships

• Connected the dots

• Had patience

Key Results

Engagement Event Participation

Content Marketing

Leads/Signups

Sameer Khan – Rackspace Sameer Khan – Rackspace

Marketing Manager

Linked: www.linkedin.com/in/ninjamarketing

Twitter: @ninjamarketer

Marketing Manager

Linked: www.linkedin.com/in/ninjamarketing

Twitter: @ninjamarketer

“Social media is revolutionizing and empowering sales and marketing teams to become self-reliant, connected and social”