How can you use online communities to improve your technical sales performance?

3 How to engage with online communities

Once you find online communities that suit your needs and goals, it's important to engage with them in a meaningful and respectful way. When joining a new community, introduce yourself and explain who you are, what you do, and what you hope to achieve or learn. Instead of just promoting your products, services, or solutions, provide value and support to the community by sharing your knowledge, expertise, or experience. Ask questions and seek feedback from other members who have more experience, knowledge, or skills than you. This will help you learn and improve as a technical sales professional. Additionally, be active and consistent in your participation and contribution. You can set a schedule or a goal for how often and how much you want to engage with the community to build trust, rapport, and loyalty with other members.

4 How to measure your online community impact

To ensure your online community engagement is effective and beneficial for your technical sales performance, you need to measure your impact and results. Metrics and indicators such as engagement rate, conversion rate, and satisfaction rate can provide a good indication of the success of your content. Engagement rate measures the percentage of people who interact with your posts, comments, or messages, while conversion rate tracks the number of leads, prospects, or customers generated from the community. Satisfaction rate measures the percentage of people who express satisfaction or gratitude for your contribution or support. A high engagement rate means that your content is relevant and interesting for the audience; a high conversion rate indicates that your content is persuasive and convincing; and a high satisfaction rate shows that your contribution or support is helpful and appreciated by the audience.

5 How to improve your online community performance

As you engage with online communities, you can always look for ways to improve your performance and results. Experimenting with different types of content, formats, styles, or tones can help you find out what works best for your audience and goals. Additionally, analyzing and optimizing your online community performance and impact through data, analytics, or tools is a great way to measure success. Furthermore, gathering feedback from your audience through surveys or polls can provide useful insights for optimizing content, strategy, or approach. Finally, learning from successes and failures as well as from other experts and peers in your field or niche can help you grow your skills, knowledge, and network as a technical sales professional.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?