How to Create a B2B Sales Strategy for Competitors' Customers

You are probably eying some customers who do business with your competitors. If you are wondering how you can win them, you are in the right place. Read to learn how to create a B2B sales strategy for competitors' customers.

Creating a B2B Sales Strategy to Win Your Competitors' Customers

Strategic Selling

In most cases, several people influence buying decisions in an organization. Strategic selling involves identifying the contacts that participate in the sales process in the organization you are prospecting. It also entails building a relationship with them before letting them know about your product.

Once you know who these people are, create a rapport with them and ensure they understand what your product is. Let them know how it can help them solve problems and grow the organization. Deal with each of them depending on their level of influence to ensure they have the information they need to convince the rest of the team about the suitability of your product.

For instance, if you realize the greatest influence comes from the marketing manager, provide them with the information needed to convince the operations manager. Also, reach out to the operations manager to give them firsthand information about your product. 

That way, you are likely to get collective approval of your product. This will significantly raise your chances of closing a deal with the customers.

Social Selling

Social selling is a B2B sales strategy that focuses on connecting with prospects on social media. A study by Forrester shows that 68% of B2B customers use social media to find companies they want to do business with. The Aberdeen Group reports that social selling increases selling opportunities by up to 45%. It also shortens contact time by about 39% while deepening your relationship with prospects by 31%.

This is enhanced by the ease with which the internet has made information available, reducing the reliance on salespeople to get product information. Besides, most companies have hired professionals aged 18-34 years and allowed them to participate in buying decisions. These young professionals are likely to research brands and products on the internet before reaching out to the ones they are interested in.

How You Can Benefit from Using Social Selling

Using this as a B2B sales strategy requires you to define your target customers and identifying the social media platforms they frequent. With this information, you can join those platforms and focus on building a relationship that positions you as an industry leader to gain their confidence and loyalty. 

However, don't be in a rush to market your products if you want to win your prospects on social media. In social selling, the emphasis is on creating a relationship with individual prospects. It involves nurturing your leads before selling your brand and products to them. 

Focus on having a valuable conversation with your potential buyers to earn higher conversions when you finally sell your products to them. You can initiate the conversation by sharing valuable content that provides solutions to the problems they express on their posts or those you identify when researching them.

You can also participate in the conversations they initiate on their platforms. Social selling allows you to see how your competitors are relating to your prospects. You can identify gaps that your product can fill and design your products to fill these gaps. Social selling also helps you identify disgruntled or underserved customers you can target.

Solution Selling

Solution selling emphasizes the customer's needs as opposed to your product and selling to them. It demands that you analyze customer's problems keenly to identify possible solutions. In your research, you may discover the solutions the customer has been trying and the improvements you can make and recommend it as a more effective solution.

Solution selling is more effective if you can develop partially or fully customized solutions for your prospects. It makes it easy for you to win your potential buyer as you interact with them and discuss their business needs, challenges, budget, and the suitability of your customized solution in helping them solve their problems.

This B2B sales strategy relies heavily on the relationship you build with the customer. The prospects will be more willing to close a deal if they know you are available and willing to support them as they implement the solution. Your after-sales services form a significant part of your solution selling B2B sales strategy.

Consultative Selling

Customers are becoming increasingly skeptical about sales and marketing messages. They are becoming more open to brands that demonstrate an interest in helping them grow their businesses. You can win their confidence by positioning yourself as a business consultant as opposed to a salesperson. 

Consultative selling requires you to research your potential buyers to understand their pain points. It helps you develop a relationship based on the value you can add to their business to help them grow it. It also demands you to have the business acumen to offer business-related advice beyond the product you are selling to the prospects.

Once your prospects start viewing you as a business consultant, they will trust the recommendation you make. This makes it easier for you to sell your products to them. Through consultative selling, you create long-term, trust-based cooperation that gives you an upper hand when retargeting your prospects.

Consultative selling does not necessarily lengthen the sales cycle. It helps you avoid closing a deal prematurely by making you win the prospect's trust before selling to them. 

This way, the customer is convinced you are not out to make a single sale. But you are interested in seeing their business grow as you also grow yours. Through consultative selling, you develop a mutual understanding with your prospect. This makes them want to support your business growth as much as you are supporting theirs. 

Content Marketing

Buying decision-makers are increasingly relying on independent internal product and brand research. Content now becomes a strategic marketing tool for brands that want to be noticed and considered for business deals. Your content will give you visibility and position you as an expert in industry-related matters.

For visibility, generate content that helps you rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs). You can raise your ranking by including backlinks and internal links in your content and making it easy to read and scroll the content.  A mobile-friendly website with a high loading speed also increases your ranking.

Besides your website, you can also share relevant content on social media. Once you know where your prospects hang out on social media, participate in their conversations and share content that meets the pain points they express on their posts.

The idea is to present yourself as a knowledgeable professional in your field. This is so that they can view you as the go-to industry expert. Once they get used to consuming your content and you cement your relationship, it becomes easier to sell to them and close deals.

How You Can Benefit from Using Content Marketing

Content marketing may allow you to address gaps left by your competitors,  build a relationship with underserved and dissatisfied customers, and win competitors' customers who may begin to consider you as a viable option after seeing the value in your content.

Content marketing is a B2B sales strategy that relies heavily on your story-telling techniques. It looks at your ability to hook your prospects to read to the end and come back for more. Besides the information they find in the content, give them a good user experience by making the content easy to read, scrollable, and clickable. 

You can use long or short-form written content, podcasts, videos, or infographics. Remember, the aim is to gain visibility, cement your relationship with the prospects, and ultimately market your brand and products.  

Warm Calling

Warm calling involves using online tools to monitor prospects that visit your website and capture their details. The fact that they visited your site shows they are in the market, searching for products related to what you are offering.

Your website visitors already have an interest in your brand and products. If you contact them instantly and directly, you may increase your conversion and deal closing rates. 

Base your warm calling conversation on the time the visitors spent on your site and the information they clicked on. Begin by finding out if they got the information they wanted. Fill in any gaps in the information they may need to help them in their buying decision.

If you are a sales leader, business owner, or entrepreneur, you can benefit significantly from a B2B sales training program like Deal Flow Accelerator. This six-week B2B sales training program will equip you with proven and actionable B2B sales tips, tactics, strategies, and frameworks to help you get better clients, bigger deals, and higher margins. 

Contact Bold CEO to find out how we can help you maximize your potential to close more deals and grow your dream business.