Nearly four months after launching the updated version of its social drip marketing tool, Insightpool has acquired the Silicon Valley-based social selling startup Next Principles in a step toward creating its own unified social media marketing and selling platform.

Social media is an incredibly powerful tool for marketers, and not simply because of its massive audiences and targeted advertising. Consumers, vendors, and businesses all interact at a far more personal level on social media than through many traditional selling channels, but figuring out whom to contact, when, and how often is a complicated dance that becomes even more difficult when you factor in the multitude of different sites and apps that people use to communicate.

Insightpool’s solution to this problem uses data algorithms to analyze thousands of public profiles on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere to find and engage key influencers based on a client’s criteria.

Turning “window shoppers” into buyers

But Insightpool CEO Devon Wijesinghe told me that finding and engaging potential leads and clients is just the first step in the social selling process. The tools created by Next Principles will allow Insightpool to not only foster meaningful conversations with people over social media, but to also evaluate their intentions and focus on engaging those most likely to buy.

“We drive people to be window shoppers,” Wijesinghe said. “And Next Principles can then capture the people actually wanting to buy.” Much as political candidates focus on the undecided voters, Next Principles finds people who are ready to make a decision to buy a product or service but need a nudge in the right direction.

Insightpool’s new acquisition also comes with a suite of new metrics that measure the success of different campaigns and sales strategies. The metrics will allow marketers and salespeople to view how many leads were found through social media, how quickly they move from first contact to making a purchase, how many referred a company’s services to others, and so on.

Going forward, Wijesinghe told me that Insightpool intends to be “very acquisitive,” with plans to cover the entire customer journey from engagement and first contact through sales, retention, and more.

Image credit: Insightpool (c)