Be human when on social media

/

Partly because of social media, that "human element" in B2B marketing/sales is more important and desirable than ever. Here are a few ways to add the human element to your marketing and sales efforts.

  • Develop marketing language/content that is more conversational.

  • Use the second person ("you") when speaking to customers. So many companies use the first person ("I" and "we") which makes it sound like those companies are talking to themselves.

  • Ask questions when marketing/selling. It shows that you care about -- and understand -- that person's challenges (and maybe his/her opportunities.)

  • Avoid robotic-sounding corporate speak.

  • When creating sales letters, e-blasts, marketing materials, web content, etc. read your text out loud and see if it sounds natural and real. IOW, write like you speak.  

  • Use images of your key employees to begin the engagement process.

  • If you are selling to a specific person do these two things: (1) Create and present a personal bio to that prospect. (2) Ask non-business questions -- college? Favorite sports team? Best vacation? Etc. -- so you can learn about that prospect as a person. The goal here is to find "common ground" that you can build on.

Hope these help.

Author Joe Starin heads up Hit by a Brick, an independent copywriting resource.