Social media sales tactics for B2B audiences in the cannabis industry

Be the first to know when new content like this is available!

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive notifications of new posts, local news and industry insights.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! There was an error submitting the form.

In the cannabis industry, social media may not be the first channel you think of when someone mentions sales opportunities because social media marketing can be so difficult for cannabis brands. However, the rules that make social media marketing so difficult for cannabis companies don’t apply when it comes to networking and warming up with B2B sales prospects.

The truth is, social media is a valuable channel for promoting sales – to create brand awareness and build relationships that lead to sales. Here are some of the top ways to incorporate social media into your B2B sales tactics.

Direct sales

The first steps in developing and implementing a successful social selling strategy are to identify the buyer personas of your target audience and determine which social media platform is best for reaching and building relationships with those audiences . For selling the B2B cannabis industry, LinkedIn and cannabis-specific social networks like Leafwire are usually the best choices.

However, don’t forget that B2B buyers are likely to be active on other social media channels like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Before you begin, do your research to see if the types of content you want to share and conversations you want to have to directly and indirectly promote your business are appropriate for each platform.

For example, if your prospects are not discussing your business on their Instagram profiles, you will likely get better results on the social media platforms where they are already discussing these topics.

As soon as you have determined where you should conduct sales contacts, take action. Reach through direct messages. Use LinkedIn InMail to connect with people you don’t know.

A great trick for LinkedIn networking is to join groups that your prospects spend time in. If you’re a member of the same group as a prospect, you can connect with them and send them a direct message instead of using the limited number of LinkedIn InMail messages your account receives. To increase your InMail limit, you should sign up for LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

You can also tag people in your posts on most social media platforms so that they will be notified when you mention them. If you can’t send a direct message, tagging can work just fine to get on someone’s radar screen. Just don’t post a sales related post on your public profile and tag someone. Instead, the post should be useful and relevant to them. For example, share something they’ve published, share a link to an article you think you would like, or ask them a question.

Group interaction

LinkedIn Groups and Facebook Groups can both be powerful places to network, build relationships, and connect with prospects. So look for groups where members are likely to discuss topics related to your business, products, and services.

Once you are a member of relevant groups, you can search for people to interact with personally, post useful content, ask questions, and much more. It’s also a great way to get your own content out to a larger audience to build your personal brand as an expert in your field.

Keep in mind that most groups don’t like members posting advertising posts. Your goal in group participation is to raise awareness, make connections and find perspectives. At the same time, your participation can help people trust you and improve your relationships with them, and of course, relationship building plays an important role in closing sales.

Comment and share

When you join a social media platform and spend all of your time advertising and selling, no one is going to get in touch with you or read anything you post. Social selling is about focusing on the right prospects, providing useful insights, engaging, and building relationships based on trust.

Therefore, publish your own useful posts and spend a lot of time commenting on and sharing your prospect’s posts. The goal is to get to their radar screens first. Second, you want to add value to the conversation and prove that you are worth hearing. Once you’ve done those two things, it’s time to try selling. Sales contacts are unlikely to function without preparation of your prospects through social media.

Use the right tools

Finding leads on social media can be time consuming and challenging. You can eliminate that time when searching for cannabis and hemp license holders by subscribing to the Cannabiz Media License Database.

Each person’s data in the license database has direct links next to their names that lead to their social media profiles when Cannabiz Media researchers find that information. Just open the prospect’s record in the license database and click the link to visit their LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media profiles, where you can connect with them, develop a relationship, and finally try can sell to him.

To be a successful social seller, you also need to use the right social media listening and communication tools. It can be time consuming to find content to share, posts to comment on, conversations to join in, and so on, which are so important in building relationships and warming up prospects. To save time, use a social media management tool that will automate some of the processes for you.

For example, use tools like Hootsuite, SproutSocial, Later or Tailwind to monitor social media platforms for posts that use certain keywords that could signal a prospect, as well as for posts posted for specific groups or by specific people. That way, you’ll always have a pipeline of useful posts to share, see when and what your prospects are posting, and know when to join the right conversations.

Key insights into the use of social media for B2B sales in the cannabis industry

Research shows that 78% of sellers who do social selling sell better their peers who do not use social selling, and that social sellers are 51% more likely to achieve their sales quotas. The numbers don’t lie. Selling on social media works, and companies that use consistent social selling processes are 40% more likely to meet their sales targets.

The cannabis license holder prospects you are looking for across the supply chain are available in the Cannabiz Media License Database, and social selling is just a click away from there. If you want to close more deals, make sure that reaching out to targeted leads through social media is part of your sales process. Schedule a demo to see how you can do this with the Cannabiz media license database.