Meeting the Customer Where They Are with Hybrid Selling: A New Model for Selling in All Directions

In sales, knowledge is power.?

But when sellers can’t spend time with buyers in person, and when ever-larger portions of the buyer’s journey is completed online (estimates now put this as high as 80 percent), sellers can feel more removed than ever from understanding what individual customers want or need.

That could mean lost revenue.

In this digital-first world, two imperatives are now quite clear:

1. Buyers must be able to access your content on-demand (and thanks to B2C purchasing habits, that content should be as personalized as possible)
2. Companies must find new ways to gather buyer intelligence

“The information and education reps used to share in personal meetings now must be shared through content that’s available 24/7,” said Johan Abadie, Senior VP of Marketing at Mediafly. “And if you can't track how that content is consumed, you’re at a disadvantage.?You can’t see where you’re hitting the bull's eye, or, where you're missing the targets.”

Enter what can be called a new model: hybrid selling.?It’s more than upping the inside sales skillset of former outside sales teams.?Hybrid selling is a means of establishing a more seamless digital connection between all customer touch points, whether in-person, by video, phone or strictly online, for a true ‘omni-channel’ experience.

Hybrid Selling – The Time has Come

Being connected to customers in an omni-channel way has been a topic of interest amid B2B companies worldwide for at least two years prior to 2020.

But in the last year, “we went from omni-channel being an over-used buzzword to a legitimate ‘must do,’” according to Jon Burdette, Senior Director, B2B Manufacturing Industries, CX Advisory at SAP.

Burdette discussed how this new hybrid selling model can help companies in all verticals maximize revenues during a recent webinar hosted by Mediafly.

If a B2B customer visits a commerce site, for example, you want the right buyer to see the right assortment at the right price for their region.

The same applies to how sales reps handle any sales interaction.

“You want the salesperson to see what the buyer is looking at, so they can have a more personalized discussion,’ he added. “So the rep doesn’t say, ‘Here's our broad product offering,’ but, ‘Here are some products you're clearly interested in and I'm here to talk to you about them in detail.’"

In short, hybrid selling is selling on a one-to-one level, whether virtually or in-person, with the benefit of knowing some facts about buyer interests.

Merging All Parts of the Sales Process

Creating this omni-channel, connected experience is possible with sales enablement tech like Mediafly that acts as a content hub directly on the SAP Sales Cloud, allowing companies to distribute and manage their digital content. The Mediafly app then tracks how content is used by staff and how it is consumed by customers, and feeds that information back to sellers, sales management and marketing teams.

“Engagement data informs sellers to a degree not possible before … and helps create the personalized sales experiences buyers have come to expect as consumers.”

Centralizing content and providing insights within one application helps align?all commercial facing teams, reducing the data and process silos that typically exist between various teams, departments and the different applications they use.

For sellers in particular, content engagement data – detailing which content pieces have been viewed and shared -- informs them to a degree not possible before.?

In a sense, it replaces feedback opportunities lost during digital transactions. Sellers used to learn over a cup of coffee that a customer was interested in the first part of the presentation, but not the second part. Or, that the customer learned something new that was valuable.

Fully connected selling with content tracking in place goes a step beyond, showing sellers real data about what the customer is interested (and not interested) in – and helping create the personalized sales experiences buyers have come to expect as consumers.

The hybrid selling model essentially merges aspects of selling that were previously independent.?

“Interactions between the salesperson and the buyer are always visible within CRM platforms. But marketing content has traditionally been separated from that process,” noted Abadie.?

“When a PDF is sent over email, for example, you don’t really know what happens next. The recipient?might have opened the file, but without granular tracking of content consumption down to the page level, you lack the contextual information needed for proper?follow-up,” he explained. “If you don't have this contextual information, there's not much you can do.”?

With the Mediafly app augmenting the SAP CRM platform, sellers receive behavioral data that allows them to be contextually relevant.

“Sellers know who they’re talking to, they know the story and the timing of the interactions with this account or person, giving them more information for upselling and cross selling. Plus, they have better data to make decisions about what the next steps should be and when to reach out,” Abadie added.

Amazon is a great example of this connected selling experience. They know who we are, what we like, and can then be contextually relevant with product recommendations, attracting us to come back for more.

This is the shift being seen in B2B sales, and why companies need the right platform to accomplish it.

Content Insights for Marketing

Several engagement metrics automatically produced by Mediafly allow companies to understand what’s working, and what’s not, in their marketing content and messages.

In addition to seeing data about engagement levels (who is viewing, for how long, if and how often content is being shared), sellers and marketers can see which topics are trending among customers as well as engagement ‘scores’ that rank prospects as higher or lower priority. These insights benefit both teams: sellers can gauge next steps, and marketing teams can better understand how each piece of content is performing and make changes where necessary.

“If your content isn’t being looked at for very long, you know you missed the mark. Then the onus is on the marketing team to do a better job,” said Abadie. “And it actually pushes marketers to work more closely with sales, to make sure that we focus on giving prospects the information they're looking for.”

That leads to improved marketing messages across assets.

Marketing together with sales management also get a view on how staff members are using the content.?If something isn’t being used as often as it should be, training or discussion about why is probably needed.

Engagement Data for Competitive Advantage

Content tracking and the buyer insights that result act as a leading indicator that can yield real business outcomes.

“Let's say you're launching a couple of new products and one of them is getting looked at more than the other in the presentation or other shared materials,” said Burdette. “With insights on what customers are viewing and topics that are trending, you can then look at quote volume and sales. If you’re getting more orders, you know that your demand forecast might need to be increased. That means my factory is more able to anticipate demand than they would be otherwise.”

“These insights are not just about which slides customers are viewing. It’s about what's interesting?” he continued. “Seeing something coming from a long way off can give you competitive advantage.”

Personalization for the SAP Service Cloud

The hybrid selling concept fills another gap for B2B companies, especially companies using the SAP Service Cloud, or those that sell online.?

Unlike big B2C brands, B2B websites or e-commerce platforms aren’t always fully connected through to customer service teams. You may get some product recommendations on a typical B2B site, but service reps often don’t know exactly what’s going on until you ask a question or place an order.

“Customer service departments don't always feel like they're in the loop on what marketing, sales, or both are talking to customers about. They might only hear about a new promotion when somebody calls in to talk about another issue,” said Burdette.

"These teams really are another avenue to sell, and they’re not always seen as such.” So, they can realize similar value from hybrid selling as SAP Sales and Marketing Cloud users, he explained.?

“With hybrid selling, companies can become somewhat indifferent to where the selling is taking place. You're able to get insights from any customer touch point.”

Jon Burdette, SAP

Content that is personalized and designed for greater interaction (created using an array of Mediafly content and presentation tools) can be shared through the SAP Sales, Marketing and Service clouds, supplementing content already accessible on the Commerce Cloud.?

Content that is connected in this way allows customer service reps to:

• See what the customer has viewed
• Be trained in what the company is advertising, promoting, or showcasing on its e-commerce pages
• Understand customer engagement?

Service teams also benefit from recommended content.?AI and machine learning built-in to Mediafly makes it possible to quickly see additional content pieces that support individual customer conversations.

The end-game is for service reps to be in sync with marketing and sales efforts.?“They can be more prepared to bring it up and relate it to specific, individual customer interests," Burdette noted.

“In my mind it’s a similar execution between the Sales, Commerce and Marketing Clouds.?Companies can become somewhat indifferent to where the selling is taking place. You're able to get insights from any customer touch point.”

Selling in all directions and reaping these advantages can be accomplished leveraging Mediafly and SAP's offerings.??

“The hybrid selling, ‘omni-channel’ model works, covering companies whether they are selling in person in the future, or remotely today. Being able to mine customer insights and spread them very broadly across the organization can mean the difference between a sale, or no sale,” Burdette said.

“This is perhaps the silver lining of the last 12 months. We're all going to get really good at this across industries.”

Hear more about the hybrid selling model and see a short demo. View the “Maximize Revenue with an Optimized Hybrid Selling Model” webinar here.

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