How can we increase sales for my B2B company?
Let’s start off by talking about what you need to have to increase sales in your B2B company. To increase sales you need a better quality of inbound leads, a higher volume of those leads, a high conversion ratio and an optimised sales process.
But how do you condense all of these into one strategy? Essentially its an easy process. You have a sales pipeline that you need to convert and nurture; and also you have a marketing strategy that you need to focus on to produce the results you want and the return on investment to make it all worthwhile. Ok, maybe not so simple? That’s a lot of work I hear you say….
“Only about 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates.”
(Econsultancy, 2018).
If you are versed in sales then you know to focus your attention on your prospects pain points. If you can sure those pain points, then that prospect becomes a customer – if you cure than pain continually, then they become a repeat customer. Right? Well, how about you focus your attention on yourself. Imagine you are your own prospect. What are your pain points and challenges?
B2B Sales Challenges examples;
Sound familiar? The way in which business buyers make purchase decisions has changed dramatically in recent years. This change has rendered many tried and tested sales and marketing methods redundant.
Outbound, interruptive tactics for reaching and influencing buyers, like direct mail, unsolicited email and cold calling, simply no longer produce reliable results.
“So whats the answer? Inbound Marketing. 92% of B2B buyers interact with content to form a sales decision.” (Demand Gen Report, 2017)
The internet has driven a change in buying philosophy. It’s a new era. B2B sales funnels are more dynamic. Buyers want information right now; they want it at their fingertips; they want to be able to compare you and your competitor’s offerings live. Your buyers also have deadlines, they also have targets to hit. If your product cures a pain that will help them beat the challenges that are currently stopping them progress then let them know! If you are not producing high-quality content that’s been written in tandem to suit the stages of your buyer funnel then you are falling behind rapidly. Lets, for example, take the top two challenges reported by B2B sales and marketing teams in 2017 (image above).
Generating traffic and leads along with proving the ROI of your marketing activities; both of these are a mainstay of inbound marketing strategy.
If you begin to produce high-quality content that is promoted to the correct audiences – then you will begin to see a major increase in your leads and sales pipelines. Inbound marketing key focus is getting your platforms seen in the relevant stages of the sales funnel that your prospect is in. Make them aware of your product and its offerings, make them consider your products as an option when they are ready to buy and also, make them convert. Did you know that this can all be done with highly valuable pieces of content tailored to your prospects? there are 3 parts of a sales funnel to tailor your content towards;
1) Awareness 2) Consideration 3) Conversion.
Awareness stage
71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search. (Google, 2015)
Consideration stage
92% of B2B buyers interact with product or service based content to form a sales decision when considering options (Demand Gen Report, 2017)
Conversion stage
79%of marketing leads never convert to sales, citing lack of nurturing of quality content for poor performance. (Marketo) Inbound content marketing is a strategic way of interacting with your prospects whilst creating an action in your sales funnel.
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