[Guest Post by Kinga Odziemek -Founder Brainybees]

Working in B2B sales nowadays is a great challenge. Not only that prospects are simply tired of being sold to consistently, but stiff competition does not make this job any easier. In the constantly changing industry (every industry), what worked a few years ago can be expired now. That is why you need to update your b2b sales strategy.

On the other hand, new technologies deliver solutions that help sales teams to improve their actions. Do not hesitate to try new ideas and test them on your organization. Take advantage of automation and artificial intelligence to facilitate workflow and make it more efficient.

Once you have a great product or service it is time for crafting an effective sales strategy. One of the most important things to understand before that is to realize that sales strategy not only influences your company’s return on investment (ROI) but sales strategy is actually everything your company does to sell products or services.

That is why below you can find tips on boosting b2b sales, that does not concern only the sales team. Read on!

Understanding the sales funnel

It is a total must-have. Analyze your strategy and check if it fits your sales funnel. Your actions should be adjusted to customers’ needs at a particular time.

As a reminder, sales funnel usually includes the following stages:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action

Content Marketing

Use content marketing to increase awareness of the industry and your brand. A content plan should be strongly correlated with your sales funnel. That way you not only deliver suitable content to the right customers but also attract the right prospects. Create helpful articles and videos (do not be pushy) and use the language of benefits while talking about your products or services.

Take a holistic approach. Today, a business has to focus not only on closing the deal but on the whole customer journey. Identify touchpoints between your brand and customers. The next step is to improve the customer experience during every interaction.

The customer journey does not end on finalizing the transaction. Equally important is the post-purchase phase. Remember to thank your customers for choosing your brand, as well as provide them with valuable content and stay helpful in case of unexpected issues with your products. Use a customer relationship management (CRM) system, like Livespace or Hubspot, that will enable you to streamline the b2b sales process and even forecast future sales. A CRM helps gather information about clients so that you can make data-driven decisions.

Optimize your website

A web page is a crucial aspect of sales nowadays. It is usually the source of information about the company and what it has to offer. Not only that it is supposed to be discoverable via the search engine page results (for the right keywords), but also it should include valuable content and be useful. That way your potential clients can find your website easily and get the information they are looking for.

Replay sessions of your website’s visitors and analyze them with tools like LiveSession or Hotjar. Find pain-points and unintuitive elements. That way you can improve the user experience and get more leads to drive sales.

Social media

Social selling can be an effective method of building relationships with customers. On LinkedIn, your sales reps can reach the right prospects directly and work on their personal branding as well. But social networks have more to offer. Social media marketing can be successfully used for promoting valuable content. Focus on the interaction with followers – schedule your posts in advance via Kontentino or Buffer to have more time for daily moderation and engaging discussion.

Use retargeting to reach prospects in the right stage of the sales funnel. With tools like  RocketLink you can add pixels to any links you share. That way you can retarget your ads to people who have already clicked your link. Remember to always share content relevant to your audience.

Do not cross-out phone calls

Cold calling seems like a time-consuming and over expired sales method. Nevertheless, talking over the phone is a more personal and emotional form of contact. It can be effective if you contact the right prospects. Services like Easyleadz can help you build the contact list of the right decision-makers as per your ideal customer profile. Further, help yourself with tools that can make calls more efficient. Tools like CloudTalk or Aircall enable post-calling automation and calls recording. You can analyze calls that result in closing deals and improve the whole process.

Integrate your cloud phone system with other tools, for example, a CRM system. That way you will have all client’s information gathered before at your fingertips and you can provide your prospects with a personalized offer.

Appreciate face-to-face meetings

Even though we have a lot of other forms of contact with customers, there is nothing more personal and effective as a meeting. Take your time to close the deal with the most important clients. When your prospects are located in different time zones online meetings can be as effective instead of just audio calls. Tools like Harmonizely and Zoom help you with scheduling meetings without having to exchange tons of emails. 

Improve Internal communication

While external communication is important, do not forget about the role of cooperation inside your company. If you wish to boost sales efficiency you need to think about the unhampered flow of information. As mentioned several times before, sales do not only depend on sales representatives. For better communication and understanding between sales, customer support, and marketing departments you can use workflow tools such as Stackfield and Slack. 

Create a dedicated channel where everyone can contribute ideas for sales improvement. For example, a customer support team can notify you what are the most common issues so that you can work on them.

Once you are familiar with the tips mentioned above you are set and ready to boost your sales! 

Implementation of tools takes some time, as well as getting used to them by a team. Nevertheless, it is worth to try some new methods to improve processes for a long-term profit. 
Do not forget, that every organization is different and has specific needs. Not every sales technique will work well for every company. You need to test different approaches and optimize your performance to get the most of your sales team. Good luck!