Selling Twitter Advertising - Should traditional sales methods apply?
For sure!
Social media analysis or social media advertising is a service such like any other. These days, it's probably more important to understand all the choices that we as sales people have in regard to social media, but when it comes to the sales process the same principles apply.
Your service might be "hip", but are your audiences?
It really doesn't matter what it is you are selling, there is still people on the other line (or across the table) who make the purchasing decision. Why is it that companies who offer what would be considered "hip" services train their sales people in a way that reflects their world rather than resonating with the buyer's environment.
People who follow me probably know where this is going. I usually write about personal experiences and this article is not different. I had a sales experience with a Twitter ad sales person the other day.........
A couple of weeks ago I got a coupon for $50 to spend on Twitter ads. So, I went on-line and created an ad that I hoped would get me some responses. It didn't but that was probably due to my lack of expertise in that area.
So, a couple of days later I got an email from a Twitter sales representative who introduced himself as my personal guide in that area with the suggestion to schedule a call so we can optimize my Twitter advertising efforts. I gladly accepted because I always welcome best practices.
Automation is great, but only if it works
We scheduled the call. Then a couple of days later I got another email from the same person asking me to schedule an appointment. "I wanted to follow up with you to schedule some time for us to talk about optimizing your Twitter advertising".
"We already scheduled time for tomorrow", was my response. Obviously a glitch in their "lead generation" which doesn't make you feel special as a person when you find out that the person you will be talking to doesn't send their own emails it's obviously generated by a system. Oh well, I thought. Welcome to our new world.
The appointment was scheduled for 4 pm to 4:25, which I thought was oddly specific, only to find out that my representative called 6 minutes after 4 pm. When I pointed it out (as I am a stickler for punctuality, honoring other people's time) he casually said "Yes, I am late because I am running over from a previous call". Doesn't exactly give you a warm and fuzzy feeling.
I don't really understand the business value of Twitter, yet
We started the call and overall it was OK, nothing outstanding but a few nuggets of insight. I told the representative bluntly that while I was really knowledgeable on LinkedIn I was still struggling to fully understand the business value of Twitter. "That's OK", he replied without further going into it. Is it really, was my first recaction.
We finished the call 6 minutes early (maybe there is some method to this) and the sales person promised to follow up with an email recapping everything that we had discussed. This was a week ago and I am still waiting.
Maybe I should tweet him?