Today, a host of businesses in the B2B space avoid face-to-face negotiations as they tend to be time-consuming and expensive. Statistically, a recent Gartner research found that B2B buyers only spent 5% to 6% of their time with sales reps. Also, with the US B2B market set to hit 10.7 trillion by 2023, now is the time to switch to B2B sales strategies that don't rely on person-to-person communications.
Read on to learn the most effective B2B sales strategies you can utilize in the current business conditions. Tactics to help you stay on top of the game.
8 Effective B2B Sales Strategies That Don't Depend on Person-to-Person Communications
1. Utilize Social Media
With the growing popularity of social media, social selling has become one of the most popular and effective B2B sales strategies. Many people might think that this strategy is only effective in B2C interaction. However, this isn't the case. A recent Forrester survey revealed that 68% of B2B customers research solutions they need on social media.
Social selling involves establishing your defined market and building lasting relationships on social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and even TikTok. Essentially, an active presence on these platforms helps you engage with potential buyers while also nurturing potential ones. While at it, you also need to know the difference between meaningful outreach and spam.
Below are some tips on using various platforms to reach your customers:
Reaching out to prospects directly on sites such as LinkedIn provides an easy point of contact. It also helps you to generate relevant leads for your company. LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for outreach since potential clients can see you, your digital track record, and what your company does. This helps add more credibility to your message and provides more engagement than relying on an email from an unknown sender. While using LinkedIn, ensure that you use personalized messages and avoid sending spam to many potential clients. Take time to curate a list of people you intend to contact. Consider if they are active on the platform, and check for any insights about the products or services they might want. Remember to include relevant information in your messages, such as your contact details and vital resources like your website.
You can use Facebook to communicate with business prospects and build a community. You can create Facebook groups for specific products, set up pages for various brands, share testimonials, or use Facebook ads.
Twitter is also a great platform for B2B companies to announce a new product, news, share links to website content, share product enhancement information, and engage in conversations with the target audience.
Most B2B marketers overlook the importance of Instagram. However, it's also an opportunity to present your products or services creatively without spending a lot of money. Instagram enables you to host texts, photos, and videos which helps promote B2B engagements.
Social selling is one of the most effective B2B sales strategies since it focuses on relationship building by connecting with prospects, then selling later. You should promote content relevant to your prospective clients across the social media channels on which they are primarily active. There is a higher chance of a salesperson having a deeper conversation with prospects about what they care most about. This approach also helps you keep an eye on competitors. Such as how they interact with people, their methods of approaching prospects, and what customers say about them.
2. Use Account-Based Selling Strategy
Account-based selling is one of the B2B sales strategies that Gartner predicted would be utilized by approximately 75% of B2B companies by 2019. This sales tactic treats each account as one market instead of targeting a single individual as a lead. ABS strategy includes executing a multi-channel tactic across a company to establish multiple prospects.
Generally, this B2B sales strategy goes through the following cycle:
- Select target accounts: Do thorough research on B2B databases about the companies you intend to sell to.
- Identify and investigate the accounts: Next, you should identify how they would utilize your product or service and the solution you can offer. You can look into the challenges a company faces on various processes while also identifying key decision-makers.
- Personalize value: Next, you should tailor your value proposition. Develop different variations to address the goals and challenges of various stakeholders in the identified business.
- Outreach: Lastly, reach out to the stakeholders that you identified.
Note that you will need enough data from your existing customers or target audience to implement account-based selling to help you identify common characteristics. ABS selling can be ideal for businesses with lengthier sales cycles, require approval of various decision-makers, as well as those with complex sales interactions.
This selling strategy is effective because it keeps multiple stakeholders in a prospective business engaged. Account-based selling also uses various value propositions based on buyer personas while also addressing their goals and challenges. By using the right message on the right person, you can build stronger relationships with prospective businesses. This leads to more value conversions.
3. Invest in Email Marketing
Email marketing may seem like an outdated strategy. However, it remains one of the top digital activities for most internet users. Also, emails don't seem to go anywhere, especially in business-to-business communications, despite being in an age of email overload. Overloaded inboxes and low open rates mainly result from ineffective targeting in email marketing campaigns. As such, consider utilizing your virtual address book to help you generate the best email lists and make sure you send out content that adds value to your subscribers. Also, note that the B2B audience is more rational, so you'll need to keep their specific needs in mind.
Remember, the header is the most critical aspect of your email, so make sure it captures your audience's attention. Businesses receive several emails daily, so your email header should have a clear message. Also, your subject line should outline everything to the client to make them curious about reading the entire email message. On your email content, come up with something unique to convince your audience that you have something more valuable to offer than your competitors. Moreover, your message should be easy to read and understandable. Use subheadings, appropriate fonts, bullet points, as well as highlight vital areas in your content.
4. Focus on Providing Solutions
In B2B sales, you need to avoid being overly pushy or just self-promoting and instead focus on being helpful. Without offering value to your prospects, you won't grow your customer base. Focus on helping companies win complex deals using a scalable and insights-driven approach.
In this strategy, you need to identify different contact points in the prospective companies based on their influence on your sales procedure. Next, determine the level of support that these contacts can avail during the decision-making process at the prospect company. For instance, if you plan to sell an automation tool to a business, you should aim to contact the marketing manager or operations manager who has been searching for productivity tools that can boost their team's effectiveness. Once you contact them, you may realize that the marketing manager is willing to introduce your tool to the company. The operations manager is responsible for making the actual decision. By establishing your value proposition per the marketing department's needs, you can begin the conversation on a meaningful footing.
This tactic is effective because it forces the sales team to work beyond the single contact they establish. Instead, salespersons must go a notch higher into the prospect's organization. This is to identify the essential people who make or influence decisions.
5. Create Case Studies Using Current Customer Base
A significant number of B2B buyers rely on case studies to influence their purchasing decisions. By creating case studies, you can learn how your customers use your products or services. And where they are saving time and money. You'll want to include quotes and stories for your customers and also try incorporating statistics if possible. For instance, if you want to sell a tool to a prospective company, you can state that the tool can help businesses save a certain amount of money per month and save employees time, making them more productive.
Regardless of what your company does, make sure you leverage data to create case studies. Case studies are a crucial tool that helps you capture your client's interest in your services or products as it's quantifiable proof of what your business does.
6. Develop a High-Performance Website
A company website has become one of the most critical assets in today's business world. It is also one of the most effective B2B sales strategies. Your firm's site can deliver more B2B sales than using brochures or even digital billboards that were popular a few years ago. With a good website, B2B prospects can easily access information about your company. Such as the products or services offered or any upcoming projects. Even better, clients can access contact details to reach out to the company or even use options such as 'chat' to make any inquiries.
Also, the robust educational content available and carefully targeted offers on a company website help drive leads to engagements and eventually deliver qualified B2B leads. The procedure of nurturing leads through web content starts by attracting potential buyers. It deepens engagements by turning the prospects into qualified opportunities and then turning the opportunities into clients.
What You Should Consider in Building Your Company Website
Remember to consider the web and graphic design on the company website. The two components are critical in influencing your site visitor's perception of your company. These set you apart from other businesses and in conveying your firm's credibility. Note that B2B clients will want to work with a credible company. So your website should convince them that you are the right option.
A company's website is also a vital tool in building your visibility. The majority of potential clients will do their initial search online while looking for service providers. When these prospects find your site online, it will boost your company's chances of making more B2B sales. Also, your website makes your business well-known in the marketplace, and it demonstrates your company's expertise.
Lastly, another vital consideration in today's business space is a site's usability across various devices. A responsive website design means that your site will suit the majority of users' devices. Most people access the internet via their mobile devices even when doing business. So a responsive site will attract more prospects. You'll also need to make your site discoverable through SEO best practices. This increases the chances of your site appearing first in SERPs.
7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC)
One of the top sources of getting B2B clients is through SEO. This strategy increases awareness of a company's website by ensuring that it appears on top of search engines like Yahoo, Google, as well as Bing. And like we stated earlier, your target clients have to find your site for it to be effective. This is where SEO comes in. Although email marketing, social media, and other B2B sales strategies also generate website visits, SEO visibility is critical. Search Engine Optimization helps to increase your audience in a relevant and targeted way. Potential clients will self-identify with your site as someone who has an interest in the products or services they need.
SEO is also a great tool to help you measure results. By analyzing data, you'll find who has been clicking through your site to know the businesses searching for your products or services. This is one of the best leads in B2B.
Some of the reasons why SEO is one of the most effective B2B sales strategies is because it:
- It is a cost-effective method of ensuring that your brand remains competitive in your industry
- Simplifies searches for clients interested in your company's products or services
- Continues to evolve in line with mobile and search engines
PPC is another essential tool that you can use to increase your site's traffic using paid online advertising. Typically, you sponsor or buy a link that appears as an ad on SERPs when prospects search for keywords related to your products or services. This is a cost-effective method used by companies to generate high visibility. PPC is also adaptable to different markets and audiences.
8. Invest in B2B Content Marketing
B2B customers are usually driven by logic, the desire for more details on a product or service, and are also focused on expertise. Therefore, investing in B2B content marketing is a smart way of satisfying their priorities and popularizing your brand.
Unlike the traditional PR marketing tactics that would interrupt a customer's daily schedule with promotional materials, using content is one of the most excellent B2B sales strategies since you avail valuable information. In fact, using content as your sales strategy supports SEO efforts. This entails predicting what your target audience wants, helping them discover your website or social media platforms, as well as converting them into leads.
Using B2B Content Marketing
While using B2B content to boost your sales, you also need to align your content in the various customer journey stages. Don't only focus on educating prospective B2B buyers about your company or the products and services you want to sell. Instead, focus on educating the buyers on their pain points. You should also test the type of content you provide to your prospects. You can run the test using an eBook, a video, as well as a webinar to vary the type of content you have. The tests will help you understand the content format that attracts the best leads.
Also, keep in mind that a B2B customer's journey is different from a B2C buyer's journey. This is primarily due to the decision-making process and sales cycles. As a result, the content you create to drive your B2B sales will mainly involve industry reports, white papers, case studies, checklists, ROI calculators, as well as testimonials. Video content is now a reliable tool since it has changed the way sales reps interact and sell products with new prospects by eliminating in-person interactions. Business blogs are also highly recommended. They house all the company's content as well as serve as a reference point for readers to learn about your products or services.
Why You Should Add it to Your B2B Sales Strategies
Using content marketing to boost sales is a good way to improve your B2B sales strategies since it generates value that effectively delivers leads. This is mostly due to the change in buyer behavior. Since most prospects don't have time for person-to-person interactions with salespersons. Potential clients can now stick to their offices and access details about the products and services they want, making them informed even before communicating with a sales rep. As a result, B2B companies have realized this and are now creating content to help them have a significant influence earlier in the sales process.
In a nutshell, the current business landscape has seen B2B businesses adopt different tactics that don't involve person-to-person communication. There are several options, as discussed above, which can take your company to the next level. You can choose a sales strategy depending on your resources, target market segments, the mode of engagement they prefer, as well as the number of decision-makers.
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