CHAPTER 15

SOCIAL SELLING TRENDS

Harnessing the Growth of Mobile Sales

When was the last time you checked your email on your smartphone? How long has it been since you used your mobile phone to send a text, look up directions, or check out online reviews of a new restaurant? How many times have you watched a video or downloaded a book on your iPad or other tablet? More than likely you do most, if not all of these activities, on a daily basis. That's because your mobile device stopped being just a phone a long time ago.

Consider that smartphone adoption has now exceeded 50 percent market penetration in the United States, with more than 125 million devices currently in use, and that tablet use is headed in the same direction with well over 50 million devices in use.¹ The number of devices is only part of the story, though. Of particular interest is how consumers are using those mobile devices, and how that use impacts the social selling process. Let's take a closer look at why now is the time to factor mobile into your sales strategy.

THE INFLUENCE OF MOBILE DEVICES BY THE NUMBERS

Whether you are a salesperson or marketer, you have probably realized that your prospects are most likely going to engage with you or your brand via a mobile device at multiple points during the sales process. In fact, prospects may discover your brand for the first time through some type of mobile touchpoint, whether that be via mobile search or through content shared in social media, for instance. And whether you sell B2C or B2B, you may even be able to use mobile devices to prompt a sale by targeting prospects by location and offering immediate coupons or discount offers. A constantly increasing number of people are using mobile devices (rather than their desktop or laptop computers) to get online for everything from networking to shopping.

A 2013 study by The Media Behavior Institute indicated that nearly 44 percent of total weekly time spent online was done through a mobile phone, while 17 percent of time was via a tablet, and the report indicates that both of those numbers are expected to continue to rise.² The report also reveals that email, social networking, and entertainment were among the top online activities conducted via a mobile device in the first quarter of 2013. Research from comScore indicates similar trends, finding that in the single month of December 2012, social networking via mobile devices accounted for 55 percent of time spent online!³ The question remains whether or not all (or even some) of this mobile activity and social networking is adding up to real dollars for brands. The short answer is yes!

For starters, let's take a look at buying trends from the daily deals website, Groupon. In 2011, only 14 percent of its deals were purchased via a mobile device. By the start of 2013, that percentage had more than tripled to 45 percent of transactions being completed via mobile, according to an annual Internet trends report.⁴ The same report showed that the social networking site Facebook credits the explosive mobile usage with driving similar upward trends in both number of users and amount of ad revenue generated. In the first quarter of 2013, Facebook saw traffic from 751 million mobile active users, or 68 percent of active users. That category of mobile users has maintained double-digit growth for at least eight consecutive quarters. Similarly, ad revenue for Facebook hit $1,245 million in the first part of 2013, with 30 percent coming from mobile—more than double the percentage from just nine months earlier, when the data was first available.⁵

For other companies, the influence of mobile devices still looks to be in its infancy. For example, analysts estimate that for Amazon, the Internet retail giant, only eight percent of sales (not including downloads to its electronic book reader, the Kindle) come from mobile devices. In comparison, the same resource looked at mobile influence for the following sites: Google gets as much as 25 percent of its search queries from mobile; LinkedIn receives on average from 15 to 20 percent of its page views from mobile; and Walgreens says that 40 percent of its prescription refills are derived from mobile devices.⁶

Though some industry experts consider these numbers to be low for mobile-based sales, researchers seem to agree that mobile commerce, or m-commerce, is only going to continue to grow. Internet trend tracker eMarketer anticipated that mobile transactions will account for 15 percent of all online retail sales in 2013, adding up to a whopping $39 billion; and that by 2017, they expect three-fourths of “digital buyers” to make at least one purchase via a mobile device.⁷ While this is a good sampling of the impact of mobile on various established brands, what does the rise of mobile commerce and the growing number of buyer interactions from mobile devices mean for you?

MOBILE COMMERCE IN ACTION

First, I must be clear that mobile commerce and mobile marketing are not new. Both have been around for a while and marketers, along with various technology companies, have already had lots of experience trying to figure out how best to reach consumers via mobile devices, and then how to engage them and get them to convert to customers. In a survey of its small business users, the online company Web.com found that 69 percent of respondents considered mobile marketing “crucial” for growing business in the next five years, and that 36 percent already had success in using mobile marketing to attract local customers.⁸

I'm always curious to see exactly how companies like those surveyed are using mobile to market and sell, so not long ago I couldn't help but take note while shopping in a clothing store with my daughter when a sales associate offered a paper coupon, of sorts. The in-store “coupon” contained instructions for sending a text message from my mobile phone to a special phone number, and in return I received a code for an immediate 20 percent discount on anything purchased in the store that day. (Using text messaging in this way is typically referred to as SMS marketing.) Once I used the code, my phone number was captured by the retailer so it could continue marketing to me long after I walked out of the store. And ever since that day, I receive weekly text-based alerts on my phone for “happy hour” discounts or other “exclusive” specials. (Of course, consumers can opt out of receiving these text messages at any time, just as you can opt out of receiving emails from companies.) Another example of mobile marketing came to my attention after the end of a meal at a popular sushi restaurant. When the waitress delivered the bill, it also included a small card with a QR code, a printed image that is scannable via your cell phone. The scanned QR code revealed an online customer satisfaction survey, along with a discounted offer for my next meal.

You've probably experienced mobile marketing in action as well. Perhaps you have been encouraged to use your smartphone to “check in” at a restaurant or special event via a location-based social networking site like FourSquare. You can even be rewarded by earning special badges from your frequent social check-ins. This activity can be shared with friends in your other social networks to show that you are frequenting certain stores, restaurants, or events. It's also used by the social networking site to make recommendations to others. Similarly, perhaps you have used a mobile device to search for a review of a restaurant on a site like Yelp.com, which then instantly influenced your decision on where to eat that day.

The power of mobile devices doesn't stop at marketing. Using a smartphone to accept or make payments is another growing trend. You may be familiar with a product called Square (or similar products), which allows you to easily add a small device to your mobile phone via the USB port, after which you can literally swipe credit and debit cards for payment. Talk about enabling a true mobile salesforce! In fact, the Girl Scouts of America has started allowing some of its troops to use this payment method during its annual Girl Scout cookie drive. What happens if a customer doesn't have a few dollars in cash for a box of cookies? No worries; they simply have their debit or credit card swiped on a Girl Scout's (or troop leader's) cell phone. If you haven't purchased cookies this way, chances are you have used mobile payments in other ways.

Starbucks makes it easy for customers to pay for their morning ritual cup of coffee using nothing more than a mobile phone. After downloading an app to your phone, and transferring money to this new virtual wallet, you can then use what is the equivalent of a customer loyalty card that's stored on your smartphone. Simply flash your phone to the barista and use the app to pay for your coffee. It's quick and easy, and Starbucks uses the data it collects on your purchases to better market to you, sending you rewards and special offers. The idea of using your mobile device to accept or make payments had already added up to nearly $13 billion in 2012, and the mobile payment industry is expected to see $90 billion in sales by 2017, according to Forrester Research.⁹

SOCIAL SELLING AND PREPARING FOR MOBILE SALES

While all of the above are great examples of mobile marketing in action, and certainly demonstrate the power of mobile payments for grabbing sales on the go, you may be wondering how you, as a salesperson, can capitalize on the mobile sales trend.

To start, I think it's important to think of mobile as more of a team sport. As I mentioned, mobile marketing isn't completely new, though it continues to change and grow into unexplored territories on a daily basis. Nonetheless, it has matured to the point that there are lots of components to making it work, including everything from choosing the best technology or application to enable mobile sales to developing and implementing a complete mobile marketing campaign or strategy. Most organizations leave these types of details up to their marketing and Web development teams.

One critical key to mobile sales and marketing is ensuring that your website is enabled for mobile viewing. If you have ever visited a site that's not set up for a mobile format, then you know how your user experience is diminished. It's often difficult to read the text, the information on any given Web page doesn't properly fit on the screen of your mobile device, it's difficult to navigate the site and find the information you need, and sometimes there are pop-up ads or other images that can't be minimized or that don't work at all. From a customer perspective, this type of experience is frustrating and often results in leaving the site quickly.

Making a website ready for mobile is usually referred to as making it “responsive,” which means the site can detect the type of mobile device or desktop being used to view it and then adapt or change how it is displayed so it is optimum for that particular device. This isn't necessarily a hard thing to do (if you use WordPress as a blog, it's often the matter of checking a box to ready your site for mobile viewing), but usually this task is left to your company's Web team or IT department to handle.

That's not to say that as an independent sales professional or small business that you should not or cannot do any of these things for yourself. Yes, you can explore and implement mobile marketing on your own. However, you will need a different book, one dedicated solely to that topic! (Hmmm, maybe soon! Follow me on Twitter@ShannonBelew to find out.)

My purpose in introducing you to mobile sales in this book is, first and foremost, to make you aware of the trend and its importance in helping drive revenue. I also want you to see how mobile sales and marketing increasingly goes hand in hand with social media. As discussed earlier in this chapter, more people are using their mobile devices to access and use social networking sites, so it's to be expected that mobile marketing would be executed through social networking channels. Finally, it's crucial to understand that when you communicate with your prospects, there is a very high probability that they are accessing your information while on a smartphone or tablet. And just as your company website needs to be set up to be viewed on a mobile device, the same rules of viewing should be applied to all your content, emails, and promotional offers.

Here are a few of the ways that you, as a salesperson, can be prepared for mobile:

• Make sure your content and especially emails are easily viewable on mobile devices.
• Include key contact information near the top of mobile Web pages or any content that you send prospects so that phone numbers and email address (or other pertinent facts) are easily seen and accessed from a mobile device.
• Use third-party platforms, like SlideShare, for your sales presentations and documents so that they are readily accessible by clicking a link (or URL) to view them, instead of requiring that the information be downloaded or opened (which isn't always easy from a smartphone).
• Incorporate audio in the presentations and content you send to prospects so there is another option for receiving your information via mobile devices that doesn't require the prospect to stop and read or look at your content.
• Make sure any calls to action that are included in your emails and content are clearly visible and simple to respond to from a mobile device.
• Include social media sharing icons or buttons on all your information so that prospects can share on their networks from their mobile devices.

As you can see, a big part of using mobility in your social selling process is ensuring that your content is easy to access and view from both smartphones and tablets, and providing multiple options for prospects to consume your company's messages over mobile devices.

Now that you have an idea of how mobile is being incorporated into the sales process, in the final chapter of the book you get a glimpse at several companies (both B2C and B2B) who have found success with social selling.