Tweet

How to Use Twitter for Sales Prospecting

Written by: Pete Brand

Article Overview: Today I’d like to chat a little about how you can use Twitter to identify hot prospects and begin a conversation with them that can lead to the beginnings of a strong relationship. Not only that, but you can accomplish this without leaving your desk, and without even picking up your phone!

How to Use Twitter for Sales Prospecting

I find it strange how it’s possible to go from having a difficult time grasping the concept of something, to finding endless ways to use it in a matter of a few months!

That’s exactly what happened to me when it came to Twitter.

I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised since I am involved in an industry where something we couldn’t possibly conceive one day … can change the world in that same few months.

Today I’d like to chat a little about how you can use Twitter to identify hot prospects and begin a conversation with them that can lead to the beginnings of a strong relationship. Not only that, but you can accomplish this without leaving your desk, and without even picking up your phone!

Step One – Identify Hot, Profitable Keywords

If you are new to the online world you might be saying to yourself, “HUH?!?!? How the heck do I do that?”

The best way is to brainstorm to come up with a broad keyword that your buyers might type in to find you.

For example, if you are a website development company, and you checked the Google Keyword Tool, you’d find the keyword “Web Development” is searched for an average of 823,000 times per month. That’s a pretty hot keyword as far as search volume, but also, the people who are using this keyword to search have commercial intent nearly 90% of the time.

It isn’t exclusively about search volume, it’s much better to go afterhighly targeted buyers that are READY TO BUY.

Step Two – Identify People with Needs

Now that you’ve identified your hot, profitable keyword, it’s time to find people who have needs related to this keyword. Twitter has recently added a search box on the right hand side of your page when you login.

Once you are logged in all you have to do is enter your keyword inside quotations ( “web development” ) and click the little magnifying glass next to it. Once you’ve done this you will be presented with “Real Time Results” with the most recent updates first.

Step Three – Listen to What They are Telling You

The next step is to review each result and quickly evaluate whether you can help them or not. The beauty of this search feature is that there will constantly be new results coming in so this one search could keep you busy all day and you’ll never run out of people to help!

The system won’t automatically dump them onto your screen which is good. Once you’ve pored through the most recent results you simply need to look at the top of your results and it will tell you how many new results have come in and click “refresh” to see them.

Step Four – Deliver VALUE and Don’t be That Guy (or Gal)

Remember PART ONE of this series where we talked about the sales person who attends the networking events and runs around the room “glad handing” everyone and cramming their business card in each person’s hand without allowing the person to say one word?

Don’t be that guy!

Evaluate each of the results you are presented and ask yourself, “What are they asking for and how can I help?” Their “Tweet” is an invitation to begin a conversation, not an invitation to apply some aggressive closing technique.

Using the Web Development example, you might want to create a report on “How to Plan for and Develop a Successful Website.” If you see they are thinking about developing a new site you might want to reply and send them a link to this FREE report. If they have a question about something to do with their website, perhaps you could answer their question.

Keep in mind that as you are replying to these people your replies are visible on your profile page, and the content could possibly show up when others are conducting searches of their own. This will help you build credibility and display your expert knowledge within your industry.

Related Articles
  Sales Prospecting Techniques
  Sales Prospecting for Sales Results
  Sales Prosecting Techniques - Should B2B Sales People Use Twitter?
  Prospecting it is simple only DOING counts
  Sales Prospecting is the most important skill©

Article Tags: prospects, relationship, sales prospecting, twitter, twitter sales prospecting



Related Forum Posts
Prime Means of Selling - Prospecting and Selling aren't the same. Prospecting is finding the few within a target group who are prime candidates for your service. I don't think everyone will agree on what "prime" means but I'd say if the prospects actively want what you're offering and have the ability to pay for what you're offering then they qualify as "prime".
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: Using Twitter To Double Your Traffic? - I'm sure in many cases Twitter sends more traffic than Search Engines because most people don't have good enough SE rankings to get SE traffic. But anyone can get Twitter traffic. The problem is that Twitter traffic won't convert for the most part and SE traffic will. I'd venture to say that 98% of the time getting just 100 visitors from search is better than getting 2000+ from Twitter.
How to Use Twitter to Market Products? - How do you use Twitter to market products? Has the Twitter route given you good results? Please share your experience and ideas on how to use Twitter to take a product to the customers. Thank you in advance.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Why Use an Advertising Agency

Unspoken Yet Important Rules for Book Proposals

Bootstrapping Your Start Up Business.

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.