Selling your products and services directly to other businesses can be profitable. For instance, your tech company can sell sophisticated enterprise solutions to another tech company. This makes B2B sales the perfect way to build brand loyalty and provide tailored solutions.
However, this doesn’t mean that B2B sales don’t come without their own challenges. For instance, you may fail to get high-quality leads, face higher competition, or experience longer sales cycles. It may also be difficult to align your marketing and sales departments.
But if you’re looking to improve your sales skills to close more deals in 2022 — or to take your business to the next level — we’ve got a number of proven B2B strategies that you can use to win more customers in 2022. Let’s take a closer look.
1. Opt for account-based selling
Google Trends shows that interest in account-based selling has been growing steadily. Account-based selling is a sales model where you launch a company-wide, multi-channel, and multi-touch strategy to target a limited number of high-value customers.
Account-based selling requires nurturing relationships with several stakeholders in a single company. You’ll then identify cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and provide a customised solution to the target company.
Using account-based selling as a B2B sales and marketing strategy has many benefits, such as:
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- A streamlined client acquisition process — You are able to avoid poor-quality leads and focus on high-quality prospects.
- A chance to customise — You can craft personalised video messaging for a segmented audience instead of disseminating generic messaging.
- A quicker sales process — By focusing on key decision-makers, you are able to expedite the sales process. This is because you avoid losing time pitching to the wrong people throughout the sales process.
- Cost efficiency — Customer targeting means that most of your marketing and sales budget is invested in the most attractive leads.
- Data quality — Focusing on account-based selling is one of the best ways to find rich data that you can use to make better sales decisions.
2. Create collaboration between the sales and marketing teams
Another B2B sales strategy is to ensure constant and high-quality communication between the marketing and sales departments. In addition, both departments should align across the same goals.
To create alignment between the two departments, you will need to have an executive-level commitment. Messaging flows from the top down, and senior leadership endorsing this approach will go a long way to encouraging its adoption.
You can also use data to unite both teams. This will make it easier for the sales and marketing departments to have a similar mission if they derive insights from the same data. Moreover, the two departments can run joint campaigns and make their budget more effective. It’s also easier for them to align team KPIs and targets so that they are working towards the same outcome as opposed to operating in silos.
3. Adopt solution selling
Solution selling is where you identify your prospect’s needs and then recommend your services or products as the solution. It is based on the principle that your prospects may not know their problems, or how to best address them.
Solution selling starts with:
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- Identifying your prospect’s pain points and objectives
- Knowing your target’s challenges and problems
- Finding solutions that comprehensively solve their challenges and problems
Leads who need tailored solutions instead of off-the-shelf products are ripe for solution selling. In this case, you may need to combine several services and products to tackle a specific problem. A customer who also requires a high level of support can be a good fit for custom selling.
Custom selling is perfect for B2B sales campaigns because it creates long-term and loyal customers. While your competitors focus on providing a short-term fix, you will be designing an enterprise-wide solution that improves efficiency and benefits the company for many years to come. Moreover, your brand will become a trusted advisor that enjoys deeper engagements with its customers.
4. Use video marketing
The proliferation of fast networks has made it easy for businesses to use videos as a B2B outbound sales strategy. Accordingly, 87% of online marketers use video marketing to promote products and services.
It’s no secret why, either. A compelling video can convey the right emotions, highlight the key benefits of your products, and increase conversion rates. Using video can also boost your visibility on search engines and social media. It’s also the best way to build credibility, trust, and loyalty.
The main types of videos that you can use for B2B sales are:
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- Explainer videos — They offer a description of your company’s services or products. They should be informational, simple, and engaging.
- How-to-videos — They include a numbered list of steps on how a person can achieve a specific goal.
- Behind the scenes video — You can use these videos to demonstrate how your company develops, manufactures, or distributes your services and goods.
- Customer testimonial video — You can request your current customers to show their passion and enthusiasm for your services and products in a video.
- Company culture videos — These can help to showcase your company’s mission and values both internally and externally. Their purpose is to create trust between your company and potential customers.
- Event videos — Event videos demonstrate how your employees and company work and the values you hold while also enhancing the company’s image in the process. For instance, you can create a video of your employees volunteering at a community event or at a work party.
- Personalised sales videos — Personalised sales videos are tailored to specific companies, and even specific individuals within that company. By using appropriate title cards and introductory segments, you can easily personalise the same footage for a number of different clients.
It’s important to note that video marketing is best used in conjunction with these other selling strategies, too. When they’re working in conjunction with one another, you’ll see better outcomes in your B2B selling.
Getting started with Shootsta Elevate
Shootsta Elevate is an AI-powered application that quickly creates personalised sales videos. This helps you to increase your business’s conversion rates by up to 4x and drive action at all stages of the sales funnel. Our customers enjoy a 90% video click-to-play rate, 70% response rate, and a 24% conversion rate. Contact us to get started today!
Author: Mike Pritchett, Founder & CEO, Shootsta