Strategy
Part of Planning B2B social selling around a commercial decision, not a content calendar
A B2B social selling planning template with account boundary and contact controls
Use a B2B social selling planning template for England with fields for evidence, ownership, channel purpose, costs, controls and stop rules.
This B2B social selling planning template turns an idea into a reviewable decision record. Complete it for one account group and one channel route. If a field cannot be supported, write "unknown" rather than supplying an optimistic assumption.
What to take away
- Complete the template for one account group and one channel route.
- Keep observed events, interpretations, assumptions and evidence separate to avoid optimistic planning.
- Use exact metric definitions from platform records.
- Show who has time to answer replies, as publishing without response capacity creates activity not sales.
- Sign off the completed plan before launch and attach evidence rather than rewriting original assumptions.
1. Decision and owner
Decision due: [date]
Decision and Owner Gate
Is the question answerable by end of window?
Name owner and proceed
Rewrite as buyer next step
Named owner: [person responsible for continue, change or stop]
Question: [the exact commercial choice this plan must inform]
The question should be answerable by the end of the planned window. "Become a category leader" is not. A workable version asks whether a defined buyer role will take a specified next step after receiving relevant evidence.
GOV.UK's guide to defining success concerns public services, but its planning principle transfers: choose measures that reveal whether the work addresses the problem, and use research alongside performance data.
2. Account boundary
England rule: [head office, affected site, delivery place or another field]
Eligibility: [industry, operating condition, size or buying situation]
Exclusions: [near-matches the offer cannot serve]
Evidence date and source: [official table, account record or buyer material]
The ONS 2025 business activity, size and location dataset can frame registered enterprises or local units by geography and other characteristics. It supplies context, not an account list with verified demand.
3. Buyer problem and proof
Observed event: [what happened, where and when]
Interpretation: [what the team thinks it means]
Assumption to test: [what could prove wrong]
Evidence offered: [document, demonstration, answer or introduction]
Keep these four lines separate. A published requirement is observed evidence. The belief that a post will reach its author is an assumption. If the problem comes only from internal opinion, schedule research before content production.
4. Channel and next action
Channel job: [explain, distribute, converse or capture response]
Buyer action: [observable event]
Sales hand-off rule: [fields and acceptance owner]
Channel limitation: [missing audience, estimated metric or access condition]
LinkedIn's first-party post analytics record says impressions and members reached are estimates and lists several interactions. Copy the exact metric definition into the plan. Do not relabel reach as interest or a reply as a qualified opportunity.
5. Work, cost and approval
Activities and hours: [research, drafting, review, publishing, response, sales follow-up]
Purchased items: [platform, media, production or data cost with dated quote]
Approvers: [technical, legal, client, brand or security]
Recovery owner: [person who can pause access and publishing]
Add cost assumptions visibly and keep them separate from invoices. The plan should show who has time to answer replies, as publishing without response capacity creates activity rather than a sales route.
6. Contact and information controls
Information used: [minimum personal and account fields]
Purpose and lawful basis review: [owner and date]
Preference or objection record: [location and action]
Retention and deletion: [rule]
The ICO explains that collecting information for lead generation must be fair, lawful and transparent. Public profile data does not remove this planning duty.
Name the guidance in the plan: the ICO's Direct marketing guidance, specifically its section on collecting information and generating leads. Under Article 6 of the UK GDPR the two lawful bases to weigh are legitimate interests and consent. Legitimate interests needs a documented balancing test; consent needs a clear affirmative action and an easy way to withdraw.
Example entry: name, job title, employer and the public post that prompted contact are the fields used. The basis recorded is legitimate interests, assessed by the marketing lead on 3 June; consent is used where someone opts into a mailing list. Objections are logged in the CRM, and records are deleted 12 months after last contact.
7. Measurement and gate
Baseline period: [dates and definitions]
Output: [count and denominator]
Buyer response: [count and denominator]
Commercial outcome: [CRM definition]
Stop rule: [control or commercial threshold]
Next evidence: [what the following round must learn]
Use the same definitions at review. If they change, keep both versions and do not merge incompatible counts.
A stop rule needs a number set before launch. Work out cost per accepted hand-off by dividing planned spend for the window by the number of hand-offs the sales team accepts.
Pause the route if that figure stays above the ceiling for two review rounds. The ceiling itself depends on average deal margin, so the sales lead sets it.
Store the completed plan and its evidence in one versioned folder or CRM record, with a date against each field, so a reviewer can trace an entry back to its source.
Worked example
The entries below are illustrative and show one completed plan for a distributor selling maintenance services to operations managers in England.
Field / Completed entry
- Decision and owner
- 30 June, marketing lead, will a qualifying site accept a 20 minute plant audit
- Account boundary
- England, sites with 50 to 249 staff, excludes groups buying through a national framework
- Observed event
- Buyer notice published 12 May naming a maintenance backlog
- Assumption to test
- That the named author reads direct messages
- Channel and next action
- LinkedIn posts then a direct message, hand-off on a booked audit
- Cost and approval
- Internal hours plus a dated media quote, approved by the sales lead
- Stop rule
- Cost per accepted hand-off above the ceiling agreed with the sales lead
- Storage
- Versioned folder in the sales drive, mirrored in the CRM record
The table doubles as a copyable version of the template: copy the field labels into a document or spreadsheet, one row per account group, then complete the columns.
Before you act
- Name the decision owner and the exact commercial question.
- Define the account boundary with eligibility and exclusions.
- Separate observed events from interpretations and assumptions.
- Copy the exact metric definition into the plan.
- Add cost assumptions visibly and separate them from invoices.
- Review purpose and lawful basis for contact data.
Common questions
What should I do if a field in the template cannot be supported?
Record the gap and the evidence that would close it. An optimistic placeholder is worse than a blank, because it enters the decision record as if it had been checked.
How should I treat LinkedIn post analytics metrics?
Quote the definition LinkedIn prints in the post analytics record, and treat impressions and members reached as estimates rather than outcomes.
What is the rule for using personal data in lead generation?
The ICO explains that collecting information for lead generation must be fair, lawful and transparent. The plan records the basis, its owner, the review date and the deletion rule so the choice can be checked later.
