Social Selling: Using Google Alerts to Nurture Prospects and Customers

Google alerts are nothing new, they have been around for quite some time. Are you using them? Setting up a google alert is a great tool for both sales reps and marketers to glean sales intelligence and stay on top of market and industry trends. The information you monitor can easily be used as part of your social selling process.

5 Ways to Set Up Your Google Alerts

1. Target Accounts - Set up Google Alerts on your target accounts to stay up-to-date on their companies. This will help you have informed conversations with your prospect and work the lead

1. Current Customers - Set up a Google Alert for you current customers. This way you will be well informed of any company changes that may impact your business
2. Territory Updates: Add a zip code or state abbreviation to the Alert you are monitoring to get updates specific to your territory or region
3. Competitor Alerts - Use Google Alerts to monitor your competitor's’ activities, new products, company updates and announcements
4. Market Trends - If you are trying to enter a new market, set up a quick Alert to get alerts on news, pain points, hot topics and key players specific to the market.

How to Create a Google Alert

Setting up a Google Alert is simple and takes about 5 seconds to do (depending on your internet speed). Here is how to do it:

1. Go to https://www.google.com/alerts it will take you to this page
2. Type in what or who you would like to monitor and your email address
   
3. You can click on the “Show options” button to setup the frequency and relevancy of the alerts
4. Set it and forget it and your inbox will begin to look like this

Social Selling: Be Helpful and Share What You Know

Once you have your Google Alerts set, just sit back and let them start the research for you. As you monitor the information that comes through it can be used in a variety of ways to nurture prospects and customers. Here is how:

• Share news and articles on your social media pages as part of you social selling process
• Find out more about key people in your target account
• Share information you found that may be helpful to you customer
• Use the information you receive from Google Alerts to reach out at the right time
• Use content to engage with your network

Are you using Google Alerts as part of you sales and marketing research prospect? Tell us how in the comments below.