Aberdeen social selling research

This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and represent
the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not
be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
July, 2012
Social Selling: Best-in-Class Targeting of the Right
Message, at the Right Time, for the Right Person
With the recent attention-grabbing IPO of Facebook, the attention of the
business community is squarely focused on how valuable social media has
become to the enterprise. With untold numbers of consumer hours now
dedicated to posting, tweeting, liking and pinning, where is the measurable
ROI for line-of-business executives seeking to monetize this brave new
world? Moreover, has the momentum of social media marketing brought us
to the point where professional salespeople can also benefit from its use?
Setting the Stage: Crossing the Marketing-to-Sales Chasm
Social media marketing has been studied by Aberdeen for some time, and
recognizing the power of user-generated content is quite common among
business-to-business practitioners of marketing best practices. In B2B Social
Marketing: Are We There Yet? (March 2012), the top 20% of performers among
520 surveyed companies represented a Best-in-Class group leading all others in
customer retention, marketing contribution to the sales pipeline, and annual
growth in revenue and marketing leads resulting in closed deals.
Figure 1: Most Effective Points in Sales Cycle to Leverage Social
Media Content, by Best-in-Class
44%
8%
46%
36%
21%
27%27% 27%
18%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Building a list of sales
prospects, companies or
contacts - working WITH
marketing
Building a list of sales
prospects, companies or
contacts - working
INDEPENDENTLY from
marketing
Initiating contact with new
prospects
PercentageofRespondents
n = 520
Best-in-Class Industry Average Laggard
Source: Aberdeen Group, December 2011
Research Brief
Aberdeen’s Research Briefs
provide a detailed exploration of
a key finding from a primary
research study, including key
performance indicators, Best-in-
Class insight, and vendor insight.

Social Selling: Best-in-Class Targeting of the Right Message, at the Right Time,
for the Right Person
Page 2
© 2012 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897
In Figure 1, we look at how “social selling” takes the hand-off from social
media marketing, by understanding when in the sales cycle survey respondents
believe user-generated content is most effective. The collaborative nature of
strong marketing/sales alignment – explored in depth in Sales and Marketing
Alignment: The New Power Couple (December 2011) – is well-defined as a Best-
in-Class practice by Figure 1, showcasing how the top sales performers lead all
other firms in using social media to build sales prospect lists by working side-
by-side with marketing. Laggards lead the Best-in-Class by more than a 3-
times factor, however (27% vs. 8%), in believing that social content should be
used to create targets without the help of marketing. Taking the selling cycle
from list-building to first contact, finally, we see the Best-in-Class more
supportive of using social media to reach out to prospects, versus Industry
Average and Laggard firms, which are more hesitant to do so. The lessons
from Figure 1: during the crucial hand-off phase of the customer acquisition
lifecycle, top-performing companies embrace social media to promote better
targeting via marketing/sales collaboration and first-contact sales outreach.
With the social media marketing data in hand, Aberdeen is now pursuing
sales-centric data with current research to be published in Social Selling:
Unleashing the Power of Social Media on B2B Sales Enablement (Q3 2012).
Among 173 companies having completed the market survey thus far, we are
able to identify an initial Best-in-Class set of companies, as well as best
practices that map to Aberdeen’s “PACE” research methodology (see
sidebars on pages 2 and 3). This Research Brief highlights a number of
capabilities adopted more frequently by these top performers, and are
summarized in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Best-in-Class Social Selling Capabilities
75%
70%
62%
56% 56%
50%
35%
47%
53%
31%
27%
40%
28%
13%
9%
0%
15%
30%
45%
60%
75%
Use prospect/
customer data
to drive marketing/
sales messaging
Engage customers
through
personalized
social experience
Connect social
sales/marketing
activities through
measurable results
Identify most
effective social
media channels
Social media
"rapid response"
to trigger events
PercentageofRespondents
n = 173
Best-in-Class Industry Average Laggard
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
Now, let’s examine each of these capabilities in detail.
The Social Selling Best-in-Class
In April and May 2012, Aberdeen
surveyed 173 end-user sales
organizations to understand how
the top performers among them
use social media. The
performance metrics used to
define the Best-in-Class (top
20%), Industry Average (middle
50%) and Laggard (bottom 30%)
among these sales teams are:
√ 79% of sales reps achieved
quota in the last calendar or
fiscal year, compared with 43%
and 15% among Industry
Average and Laggard firms
√ 16.3% year-over-year increase
in total company revenue, vs.
4.1% for Industry Average
companies and an 8.7% decline
among Laggards
√ 8.9% year-over-year increase in
average deal size or contract
value; Industry Average and
Laggard companies reported
1.7% increase and a 6.6%
decline, respectively
√ The average sales cycle was
shorted by the Best-in-Class by
0.7%, and by Industry Average
firms by 0.2%; Laggards report
an average lengthening of the
sales cycle of 5.3%

Page 3
Social Selling Continues the Marketing Momentum
Much as the previous research shows the value of social media in the
marketing phase of the overall sales cycle, the baton-pass to the sales function
includes the knowledge management capability of “using social customer and
prospect information to drive marketing and selling messaging,” as shown in
Figure 2 above. In Figure 3, the social selling research shows that companies
adopting this approach report stronger current performing metrics than other
firms; they also show stronger year-over-year growth in team quota
attainment, lead conversion rate, Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
adoption, and in shortening the sales cycle. Better business results are directly
associated with organizations that collect social sales intelligence to better
target the companies, contacts and newsworthy trigger events to hone the
language with which they approach their prospective customers.
Figure 3: Better Knowledge Management Capability Pays Off
72%
58% 57%
54%
59%
50%
52%
40%
25%
35%
45%
55%
65%
75%
Team
attainment
of quota
Sales
forecast
accuracy
Customer
renewal
rate
Reps
achieving
quota
Percdentageofattainment
n = 173
Users of customer data to drive messaging All others
Consider, for instance, a marketing product manager who announces a new
version of their solution via a tweet, offering a price discount to early-
adopting customers. A seller of marketing automation platforms, price
optimization software or other products used by this same marketing
executive could predict that future marketing or advertising campaigns would
follow, and gain early entry into that line-of-business decision-maker’s buying
cycle. Indeed, when asked about their top goals for social selling, all companies
surveyed lead with this same concept, and include other funnel-building
desires in the top-four goals nominated:
• 58% discover new contacts to market or sell to
• 49% build and protect the reputation of the brand
Aberdeen’s PACE Methodology
Aberdeen applies a methodology
to benchmark research that
evaluates the business Pressures,
Actions, Capabilities, and
Enablers (PACE) that indicate
corporate behavior in specific
business processes:
√ Pressures — external forces
that impact an organization’s
market position,
competitiveness, or business
operations.
√ Actions — the strategic
approaches that an
organization takes in response
to industry pressures.
√ Capabilities — the business
process competencies
(process, organization,
performance and knowledge
management) required to
execute corporate strategy.
√ Enablers — the key
functionality of technology
solutions required to support
the organization’s enabling
business practices.

Page 4
• 42% increase demand generation results, i.e. build more sales pipeline
through social marketing / selling
• 42% increase prospect / customer awareness of the company,
products or services
Leveraging the Personalized Message
Having determined the ideal messaging with which to “socially sell” into
better-targeted accounts, Best-in-Class companies are also stronger in their
“ability to use information to engage customers through a personalized social
selling experience.” Much as the late politician Tip O’Neill said that “all politics
are local,” top-performing sales organizations know that the best results
accrue from speaking to their prospects and customers about what matters to
them, supporting the “WIIFM Rule” – “what’s in it for me?”
Table 1: Personalized Conversations Yield Stronger Sales Results
Sales
Effectiveness
Metric
Companies
Personalizing
the Social
Selling
Experience
All Other
Companies
Team attainment of annual sales quota 71% 61%
Sales forecast accuracy 57% 51%
Reps achieving annual sales quota 49% 42%
Average lead conversion rate 26% 23%
Average sales employee turnover (low =
better performance) 6.6% 11.9%
Average deal size or contract value
(dollars) $262k $149k
Sales cycle (months) 3.87 4.28
Lead conversion rate (year-over-year) 6.3% 0.3%
CRM adoption (YOY) 4.2% 1.5%
Average deal size (YOY) 4.0% 0.3%
Using social media to better understand the day-to-day and real-time
challenges of their target accounts, Best-in-Class sellers tailor their
conversations to what is top-of-mind among their targets. A generation ago,
sales professionals learned the value of asking about their buyer’s children if
they saw a family photo on their desk; today they have the opportunity, via
social media, to learn immensely more detail about the professional, as well as
potentially personal, drivers that may motivate buying decisions among their
target accounts and individuals (note: professional sellers need to understand
Sector Definition: Social Selling
For the purposes of this
research, “social selling” refers
to explore Best-in-Class
adoption of: (1) internal
collaborative social tools used
by sales professionals to
benefit team-based selling; (2)
how sales teams “listen” to
external social content
pertaining to their customers,
accounts and target markets;
and (3) active use of posts,
tweets or wikis by sales reps
who contribute to the online
conversations, in order to
more effectively impact
eventual buying decisions.

Page 5
where to draw the line between connecting and stalking). Indeed, initial social
selling research results indicate that Best-in-Class companies use Twitter and
LinkedIn for business purposes at 100% and 95% rates respectively (compared
with 78% and 92% among other firms), but also the more consumer-centric
Facebook at a 71% level, specifically for business reasons; 60% of Industry
Average and Laggard companies do so. Finally, in Table 1 we see that a series
of current and annualized metrics are stronger among adopters of this
knowledge management capability.
Staying on the Offense: Lessons from the Trenches
Moving from knowledge management capabilities to concrete process best
practices, the social selling Best-in-Class companies, as shown in Figure 2, are
more than twice as likely as others (56% vs. 24%) to have in place the “formal
ability to launch reactive social media campaigns/messaging based on trigger
events or content requiring ‘rapid response.’” In this election year, we are
reminded of the legendary “war room” mentality first introduced to
presidential politics in the pre-internet days of the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign,
which were fully realized in an online iteration during the 2008 election cycling
pitting Barack Obama against John McCain. Today’s 24-hour news cycle
requires – and enables – virtually anyone to track user-generated content in
real-time, and to answer any challenge or sudden event with immediate
effectiveness…if they are prepared to do so.
Figure 4: Annualized Benefits Accrue from “Rapid Response” Social
Selling
9.5%
8.5%
5.7%
3.8%
1.9%
2.7%
1.4%
0.2%
-0.3%
-1.9%
-2.0%
0.0%
2.0%
4.0%
6.0%
8.0%
10.0%
Annual
revenue
CRM
adoption
Lead
conversion
rate
Team
attainment
of quota
Reps
achieving
quota
Year-over-yearchange
n = 173
Rapid social responders All others
Bringing the metaphor back into the enterprise, more than half of Best-in-
Class, social-equipped sales organizations (56%) are pre-positioned to leverage
trigger business events to their advantage, while fewer than one-third (31%) of
Social Selling: Technology Best
Practices
The technology enablers
associated with Best-in-Class
social selling performance
include:
√ 100% Remote or mobile sales
team members have full
access to social media tools,
vs. 60% among Industry
Average companies and 0% of
Laggards
√ 80% Social bookmarketing
tool (record favorite user-
curated content in browser);
vs. 57% and 33% among
Industry Average and Laggard
companies
√ 57% Social business platforms
(combines contacts,
calendars, communications,
social stream); 57% and 20%
respectively of Average and
Laggard companies do the
same
√ 56% Social media sharing
tools (e.g., allow site visitors
to share content with social
networks), compared with
50% and 17% respectively
among the Industry Average
and Laggard groups

Page 6
the Industry Average and 9% of Laggards are able to replicate this process
capability. In practical business terms, this translates into sales teams tapping
into the social media stream so that important events – mergers/acquisitions,
C-level personnel changes, legislation that impacts products or services – can
be digested and responded to with organized, prepared and effective sales
activities. For example, a user-generated LinkedIn update about a senior line-
of-business leader changing roles, can be leveraged by an attentive account
manager in the middle of selling to the executive’s former firm – the sales
approach will need to be quickly re-crafted – as well as gaining the upper-hand
by being “first in the door” in the contact’s new role. Figure 4 showcases the
annualized performance metrics and advantages associated with adopters of
this best practice; these companies also lead others in current performance
metrics such as team attainment of sales quota (82% vs. 60%), sales forecast
accuracy (62% vs. 50%), and percentage of reps achieving quota (57% vs. 41%).
Measuring What You Manage
Once the process and knowledge management capabilities above have been
implemented, Best-in-Class firms are more aggressive in measuring and
managing the performance of social selling initiatives. This is pursued in order
to track their Return on Investment (ROI), as well as in closing the loop with
their marketing counterparts to ensure long-term success.
Figure 5: Long-Term Performance Benefits of Identifying Most
Successful Social Selling Channels
-1.7%
-0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
3.2%
1.0%
2.0%
3.0%
3.6%
5.9%
-2.0% 0.0% 2.0% 4.0% 6.0%
Reduction in sales cycle
Customer renewal rate
Lead conversion rate
Average deal size
Annual revenue
YOY change, n = 173
Social
channel ROI
analyzers
All others
Companies that report the “ability to identify the most effective social media
outlets, platforms or channels” out-perform others on a year-over-year basis
(Figure 5), as well as reporting stronger current team attainment of quota

Page 7
(72% vs. 60%) and lower sales turnover (7.6% vs. 11.8%). The latter metric is
worth noting, considering that in Sales Performance Management 2012: How the
Best-in-Class Optimize the Front Line to Grow the Bottom Line (September 2011),
Aberdeen research found that the typical Business-to-Business (B2B) field
sales rep cost $35,670 to replace. Keeping sales professionals engaged, by
providing them with not only the most contemporary social media tools, but
also with proof that they are effective, is surely a welcome sales enablement
best practice. The marketing team, working in conjunction with sales
leadership, has been showcased in Sales and Marketing Alignment: The New
Power Couple (December 2011) as also benefiting from measuring the impact
of their investments and campaigns on sales-centric metrics such as how much
they contribute to the sales pipeline; the same logic applies to which specific
social media channels – blogs, posts, shares, likes, tweets across a large
landscape of user-generated content platforms – await the brass ring of
achieving positive enterprise ROI.
These best practices, finally, support the strong Best-in-Class adoption rate of
the “ability to connect our social media activities with measurable marketing
results (web traffic, campaign responses, etc.).” Adopters of this approach
report a wide number of current and year-over-year performance metrics
that are more successful than non-users, such as a 23% higher lead conversion
rate (27% vs. 22%), a 5.6% increase in annual revenue versus 2.7%, and 24%
more sales reps achieving quota (51% vs. 41%). These statistics drive home
the value of not only using social media to support marketing and selling, but
to continuously improve their effective use by monitoring and adjusting where
and how user-generated content is leveraged in the context of better sales
intelligence.
Conclusion
While social media represents a relatively new tool for professional sellers to
add to their belt, the current data strongly suggests a series of proven use-
cases for empowering them with all the sector has to offer. Companies
seeking to provide their front-line reps and account managers with better,
more actionable real-time data that promote more customer-facing selling
time, more opportunity to join the “A player” tier of success, and more top-
line revenue growth, are following the Best-in-Class trends discussed here.
For more information on this or other research topics, please visit
www.aberdeen.com.

Page 8
Related Research
Sales Mobility: How Best-in-Class Remote
Sellers Are Replacing “See” with “Do”
(May 2012)
Lead-To-Win 2012: Managing People,
Process and Technology to Optimize the
Last Mile of the Sales Cycle (March
2011)
Partner Relationship Management:
Channeling Better Sales Results (March
2011)
Sales Performance Management 2012:
How the Best-in-Class Optimize the Front
Line to Grow the Bottom Line
(December 2011)
Sales Training 2011: Uncovering How the
Best-in-Class Sustain, Reinforce and
Leverage Best Selling Practices (October
2011).
Leveraging the 360 Degree Customer
View to Maximize Up-Sell and Cross-Sell
Potential (September 2011)
"Chance Favors the Prepared Mind" -
Understanding the Science of Sales
Intelligence (July 2011)
Sales Forecasting: How Top Performers
Leverage the Past, Visualize the Present, and
Improve Their Future Revenue (July 2011)
Streamlining the Top of the Funnel: How
Inside Sales Teams Source, Qualify and
Close Business (February 2011)
Author: Peter Ostrow, Vice President and Research Group Director; Customer
Management, Sales Effectiveness
(peter.ostrow@aberdeen.com) LinkedIn Twitter
For more than two decades, Aberdeen's research has been helping corporations worldwide become Best-in-Class.
Having benchmarked the performance of more than 644,000 companies, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to provide
organizations with the facts that matter — the facts that enable companies to get ahead and drive results. That's why our
research is relied on by more than 2.5 million readers in over 40 countries, 90% of the Fortune 1,000, and 93% of the
Technology 500.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen’s research provides insight and analysis to the Harte-Hanks community of local,
regional, national and international marketing executives. Combined, we help our customers leverage the power of
insight to deliver innovative multichannel marketing programs that drive business-changing results. For additional
information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call
(800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.
This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies
provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless
otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be
reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen
Group, Inc. (2011a)

Aberdeen social selling research

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