Finding the Balance Between Hard Selling and Soft Selling Often times, businesses have trouble balancing hard selling and soft selling. We all want to make sales but we don’t want to run people off accidentally! Before deciding on the best plan of action, it is important to understand the concepts of hard selling and soft selling. Hard Selling What is it? A hard selling is often considered as a very aggressive technique. When making a hard sell, you push the client to buy in to your business, often repeatedly. Over social media, an example of a hard sell is constantly asking fans to “like” your page or share a link. Why is it Important? Hard selling is important because, the majority of the times, potential customers do not know what they need until they are prompted to think about it or are given a clear route to get your product or service. A clearly worded call-to-action is a great way for your business to direct customers to a service that they need. Even if they do not need the service immediately, they will remember your brand and message when needed the product or service such as house repair, credit scores, or even a new watch. Soft Selling What is it? Soft selling contains a lot of hints and connections. With soft selling, the business will provide solutions to their problems in a discrete way, while also portraying content is that appealing to those who follow the social media sites. Why is it important? As much as we want to tell a client about our products or services, we must understand that they do not need it every moment of every day. Building relationships is the most important way to create loyal customers! Soft selling is also a great way to help entertain, educate, or emotionally connect with your clients as well causing those bonds to be even stronger. Many times, businesses only use one type of selling technique. Over 67% small businesses only use the hard selling method. This can result in the loss of possible connections and future clients. Clients often times feel that a page with hard selling seems excessively aggressive and somewhat rude. While on the other hand, businesses that use only soft selling might be growing a base but there is no call-to-action to convert engagement into sales. A call-to-action is one of the most important parts of social media marketing, as it creates a connection between the content you post to the services you offer. The best ratio of both together is the “80/20” rule. The 80/20 rule suggest that 80 percent of your content on your social media page should be soft selling and 20 percent should be hard selling. This creates a call-to-action on a regular basis, along with something which is not excessively shared on your
social media page. The 80/20 rule often times is argued for different variations such as the 75/25 or 60/40 rule. This depends on your type of business as well. It is important to organize your postings and thoughts to reach out to every person who follows your social media accounts. By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien