The traditional phone call and physical prospecting remain a very effective lever to conquer new customers. But, faced with the lengthening of sales cycles and the need to be present at the right time for optimal sales performance, we must now impose a digital presence resolutely business oriented. Our views, multiple.
The majority of BtoB buyers learn about your products and services via the Internet, this is not new, but be aware that 80% of customers do their prospection via a web search, on your site, but also on an engine research and social networks. To be absent or not to understand the interest in your business strategy is to risk missing a large part of the buying action. Because, before you meet, the modern buyer has already built his opinion via the reviews read on the net, advanced in its purchase process through its search for information on networks, took information on your offers.
Having a good digital presence and being aware of the best innovations in the field allows you to generate leads for your sales forces, and increase the performance of sales representatives for an image of expertise that convinces.
1. LINKEDIN TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR TARGETS
According to a study conducted by Forbes in 2012, 90% of decision-makers say they never respond to non-personalized emails and, conversely, salespeople resorting to social selling [use of social networks in the commercial approach, and in particular LinkedIn, professional social network par excellence] would be 20% more efficient than the others. Why? Because social selling takes into account a very important factor: the majority of the purchase decision is already made before the prospect contacts a seller. LinkedIn is thus useful for: collecting information before any commercial action, sending e-mails via an internal messaging system (LinkedIn states that an InMail is thirty times more likely to get an answer than soliciting spontaneous), find the right contacts through advanced search, stay on standby for your target companies via news or discussion groups, etc.
LinkedIn offers you a competitive advantage, including its tool, Sales Navigator, allowing salespeople to better generate contacts and find leads. In addition, some start-ups have started to collect lead by crawling the LinkedIn pages in order to export prospect listings of mails and phone numbers directly from LinkedIn.
2. CRM IN SAAS MODE FOR REAL-TIME FOLLOW-UP
Appointments, phone interviews, notes ... In an environment where field activity is paramount, it is essential to master and centralize the information in real time for a good commercial follow-up. Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) allows you to be up to date in the history of your exchanges with your customers and prospects, and to structure your commercial approach. In Saas mode (Software as a service), it allows you to boost all your sales steps, by accessing your data remotely, appointment reminder by alert or email, appointment suggestions according to consumption habits, etc., with updates in real time.
Salesforce, Oracle, or Microsoft are the most famous. There are also many open-source solutions, to learn more, do not hesitate to find this benchmark on the subject.
3. MARKETING AUTOMATION TO AUTOMATE BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS
Marketing automation allows you to trigger marketing campaigns almost without human intervention. Plan, it's sent! This is commonly used with welcome emails to convey a series of tips and information about the brand, but also commercial reminders.
After a request for subscription or documentation, a basket or a purchase, or any type of online interaction: the prospect or customer can be integrated into automated mail routes and receive a sequence of several messages adapted to his needs. needs and planned according to its interactions.
4. THE TRACKING TOOLS OF YOUR LEADS FOR COMMERCIAL PERFORMANCE
How to instantly have the personal email or the phone of a person, his/her profile on social networks, business information about his company? Simply by crawling the web. This is THE solution provided by start-up companies such as Tilkee, Salezeo to make it easier the prospecting for your sales teams. They allow you to create B2B prospect lists and find all the information you need to add to your CRM or marketing automation tool.
5. WEBINAR SOLUTIONS FOR A HUMAN TO HUMAN CONVINCING RELATIONSHIP
Webinars, or web conferences, offered by Gotowebinar, Cisco , Arkadin, can also be a very good marketing and commercial lever, especially in the BtoB market, to offer greater visibility to your company and your products and services. This is an opportunity to present your offer but especially to interact with your target audience. Advantages? Saves time and money since accessible from anywhere, audience not limited by the size of the room, accurate tracking statistics, etc. More tips for organizing your webinar.
6. TOOLS TO COMBINE YOUR SALES STRENGTHS AND MARKETING AND ALL OTHER SERVICES: SHARING DOCUMENTS, CORPORATE SOCIAL NETWORKS
Sharing information is more than ever essential. 58% of large companies in France now have their corporate social network: 67% of managers interviewed say they understand the contribution of CSR, namely: facilitate open exchanges (for 75% of respondents), self-help (72%), the emergence of new ideas (72%), the coordination of activities (62%), the decision (62%) and the increase in skills of each (59%).
While all the innovations presented above give additional resources to salespeople in the management, monitoring and development of their portfolio, other digital innovations can also increase their overall performance, in particular by influencing their motivation through incentive compensation.
7. INTELLIGENT DEVELOPMENT OF INCENTIVE COMPENSATION SCHEMES FOR MORE MOTIVATION
Companies spend a significant share in variable incentive compensation to motivate their sales people but are they really? Is this money smartly spent to motivate the right way and improve sales performance? How to boost business performance with an effective incentive system?
A well-optimized and intelligent incentive compensation, then you have commercial people rewarded more accurately, better considered and more motivated to make the efforts that you expect from them.
You can read our article on the close relationship between business performance and a well optimized incentive compensation system.
