Complex selling in a digital era

When you are selling in a B2B context or when you are selling high-consideration products (products that require careful consideration before purchasing them), you’ve probably noticed that doing sales is not the same as it was 20 years ago.

Sales is disrupted.

Sales is disrupted: the market side

Changes in communication and transportation, the maturity of developed markets, deregulation, privatization… all led to the disappearance of boundaries in trade.

For companies, this comes with many opportunities but also many threats.

Today, you can call the entire world your target market. But at the same time, your competition has increased tenfold (or maybe even a hundredfold). This increased competition has caused the business world to enter a model of survival of the fittest. Only the companies that have a sustainable competitive advantage survive.

Sales is disrupted: the customer side

On the other hand, we have customers who are growing ever more aware of their power thanks to this ultra-competitive market. They do their research. And they decide which product is right for them before contacting a salesperson.

This new trend becomes especially awkward during sales conversions where the prospect seems to know more about the product than the seller.

And, as if that’s not enough, most B2B and high-consideration purchases have become a team effort. So instead of convincing one person that your product is worth it, you will have to convince multiple people with different wishes.

The new way of selling

Consumers today are empowered. On top of that, they like to be in the driver’s seat.

Before getting in touch with you, they will follow a self-educational process.

This is not a linear process. Too often we see companies creating their one and only customer journey with a few consecutive touchpoints. It’s important to realize that only perhaps 1% of your traffic will follow that route. If these are the only touchpoints you have, you will be extremely lucky to survive with such a small target group.

It is up to you to provide the right content at the right time to support this self-educational journey. Orchestrating content across all channels, constantly fed by new information.

To be hyper-relevant, businesses need to rethink how they market and sell. This is a joint effort by both marketing and sales.

Marketing needs to support the online journey, nurturing leads. This means providing them with the information that matches their stage in the buying journey, pushing them down the funnel.

Sales on the other hand need to provide insights to the marketing department about what the ideal customer looks like and what content he will be looking for at each stage, as a salesperson is in close contact with the customer directly.

By working together, sales help marketing attune their content to their audience and marketing. Marketing on their turn hands prospects back over to sales when they are ready to buy.

The image above represents the old and new ways of selling.

In the old way, Marketing and Sales work in parallel, siloed. Too often, sales and marketing are talking to the same audience, repeating information or even contradicting each other. This creates an inconsistent experience for the user.

For example, while Sales has been negotiating prices and are finally closing a deal, Marketing suddenly sends a Black Friday discount causing the whole deal to fall apart.

In short, not aligning your sales and marketing processes will lose you money.

In the new way of selling, marketing and sales work together to create a seamless experience for the prospect based on a 360° view. Both works on their specific target groups, which do no longer overlap, and both present the content needed in this respective stage of the buying process. This results in happier customers and higher revenue.

Making the shift

Although the new way of selling may sound obvious and easy, making the shift is not an easy job and requires several building blocks:

• Marketing efficiency: Providing prospects with the right relevant content at the right time requires content. Lots of it. To create this much content, your marketing teams need to be flexible to act upon changes in the environment, changes to your product, or changes to your audience.
• Centralized data hub: Lead-nurturing is based on behavior and new insights. You need a 360° customer view to stay relevant at all times, also during the sales process.
• Marketing and sales alignment: Your marketing and sales team need each other to drive revenue. Your marketing team will nurture leads until they are ready to be handed over. Both will need to commit to helping each other.

Ready to shift towards the new way of selling?

Contact us to find out how we can help.