Digital Selling: Secrets of the top 1% in B2B sales

The fact that the sales landscape has changed dramatically in the past two or three years isn't exactly surprising.

Even moving forward, the job market has evolved in many ways since then, and it is no longer exclusively focused on face-to-face interaction. Employees now look for remote jobs, demonstrating how far the landscape has changed.

A transition to remote interactions where office visits and lunches are less common, have left sales teams and companies in a bind.

It was time to regroup, and suddenly digital selling got a boost.

Long live 'Digital Selling'

Digital selling has been a buzz for several years, but it wasn't so popular while we could meet face-to-face. Who would want to buy digitally?

According to research conducted by McKinsey, both B2B sellers and purchasers want to be a part of the new digital reality. The excuses given for this include improved ease of scheduling, travel cost savings, and increased confidence in comparison with face-to-face interaction.

At the heart of this digital transformation is the blurring of the lines between sales, marketing and customer service and the ultimate merging of these roles into one revenue-generating business unit.

Although the term "digital selling" is often used synonymously with social selling, it also includes a variety of other assets such as sophisticated data analytics, sales intelligence, and automation.

Digital Selling is the use of digital assets to identify, engage and drive revenues from buyers. It takes a holistic view and brings together many elements across the organization to guide buyers through a journey that ultimately leads to better engagement and ultimately more closed deals.

Easier said than done

A successful digital selling strategy starts with a clear understanding of your ideal customers’ needs and wants. By utilizing data analysis tools and social media platforms to develop a well-rounded online sales funnel, you can optimize your digital selling methods to reach prospects and drive profitable action.

Simple, isn't it?

Driven by Data

In digital selling, you need to go beyond the traditional demographic, sizing and industry targeting and find your prospects by their needs and wants. Data-driven thinking is what’s behind it – before, during and after the sale. It leverages as much data as possible to keep messaging tight and that what let it become more successful as a result.

The intelligence lets you get to know your clients on an intimate level long before they ever consider making a purchase.

Meet your prospect on their terms

This increase in digital selling is being driven by buyers' changing buying habits. We see buyers putting a higher value on self-discovery and minimizing their interactions with salespeople. It's been discovered that prior to contacting sales, 70% or more of the purchase process is already complete. Furthermore, only 17% of a buyer's overall expenditure is spent with sales. This implies that sales have less opportunity, visibility, and time to influence the prospect's decision.

The benefit of it, however, is that buyers are entering a sales cycle when they have greater knowledge and a higher purpose for buying, which actually shortens the sales cycle.

Developing a "human" - style digital strategy

The same individuals who purchase automobiles, clothes, and plumbing services at home are the ones making B2B purchases at the workplace. While digital selling is important to high-performance sales, businesses must also maintain personal interactions across digital channels to show consumers the human behind the message, according on Daisy Wallace of Learning People. After all, it is people who buy and they want to be impressed: according to IDC InfoBrief sponsored by Salesforce, 78% of B2B buyers expect sales representatives to personalize interactions based on information from their online activities, so this behavioral insight is actually welcomed by your buyers!

83% indicate that they appreciate being approached by a vendor if the interactions are relevant and contextual. For sales reps and marketers looking to succeed in this buyer-controlled age, those are the two key words to keep in mind!

Outreaching more than just a single contact in your prospect

B2B purchasing is more complicated than ever before, with a wider range of stakeholders involved. According to Gartner Research Group, in a typical company with 100 to 500 workers, 7 people will be involved in most purchasing decisions, and each will be armed with four or five pieces of information they have gathered for themselves.

Gartner Research add that “customers don’t buy in a linear fashion. Rather, they use both digital and in-person channels with nearly equal frequency to complete each of the six B2B buying jobs more or less simultaneously.”

Epilogue

Digital Selling is undoubtedly the more preferred way for buyers, and only increasing in popularity and adoption.

McKinsey & Company "decision makers globally" Survey, report that online and remote sales are as effective as (or even more effective than) in-person engagement. It’s not just selling to warm leads, either. Sellers believe digital prospecting is as effective as using in-person meetings to connect with potential customers.

While they originally adopted digital in response to the frequent COVID-19 shutdowns at the start of the epidemic, many B2B sales executives are clearly becoming more convinced that digital is the way to go. According to poll participants, these trends are likely to become permanent. Close to nine in ten decision makers expect new commercial and marketing sales methods to be a permanent fixture in 2021 and beyond.

The EY report shows that digital-selling companies are 5.7 times more likely to secure prospect meetings and hit 150 percent of their quotas on average.

The rapid growth in digital adoption presents a once-in-a-lifetime chance for B2B businesses. The transition to virtual sales can assist organizations in lowering their cost per visit, extending their reach, and increasing sales effectiveness while still providing customers with exciting new ways to interact. B2B leaders with a commitment to further digitizing their go-to-market models can gain competitive advantage by gaining more – and more loyal – clients than slower-moving peers.

Now, let's get to work :-)