The sales industry is evolving and how clients find you and digest information is changing. You need to revise your sales approach and incorporate not only traditional sales efforts, but also new methods of attracting prospects, such as content marketing and social media.

I have been in the sales industry since the mid 1990’s and have done a variety of sales and employed a wide range of sales tactics, from door to door, cold calling, warm calling, inside sales, outside sales, event attendance, to mail-outs.

In the last couple of years though, I have noticed it has become harder and harder to get people’s attention through traditional calling and emailing. That is not to say it isn’t effective anymore, but in today’s market, with the advent of social media and the barrage of input that prospects are inundated with, it is getting more difficult to be heard.

Now more than ever, sales efforts, in addition to the traditional emailing and calling campaigns, needs to include a social selling and content marketing plan to assist in bringing in qualified leads. You almost need to be everywhere, in an omnipresent way. Selling today is harder than ever, but when done right, the process can be even more rewarding.

When working with your sales reps individually, and even at a more macro level, to devise your sales team’s strategy, be sure to:

• Continue to focus your efforts on targeted accounts and contacts through traditional means
• Develop a content marketing plan to assist with your sales and drive inbound leads as well as to stay in touch with your existing prospects. Your inbound lead generation process and efforts should include blogging, SEO and downloadable assets such as white papers.
• Leverage social media where appropriate and find the most effective platform to engage your targeted audience.

To finish my thought above about why calling and emailing is still effective and should continue to be a part of outbound sales efforts, let me share a story. Today, one of our clients, had a very successful meeting with a prospect we identified through outbound calling efforts that could potentially lead 3 or 4 projects over the next year or two, worth from $40,000 to $250,000 in revenue. Traditional sales still works, but you need social too.

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