Social Media is a great way to engage with prospective customers. No question. I’m a huge fan, and can point directly to business we have have won directly as a consequence of this blog, our DealmakerMagic channel on Youtube, and our Twitter activity. But it’s a long road, and one that is only worth traveling if the destination is clear and measurable. Unless your social media activity translates to increased sales velocity – i.e. more sales in less time – then the activity is just so much wasted effort.
I was making this point to a sales consultant recently, and she highlighted the fact that many of her clients didn’t know what their sales cycle is today, so therefore it was going to be difficult to measure any improvement. We are in the business of improving sales velocity, so this was not the first time we came across this problem. So, here’s some data that might help you determine where to start. It’s an analysis of the submissions by about 1200 companies to the Dealmaker Genius site.