I've written before about how B2B (Business to Business) sales and marketing is like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote. You remember the cartoon characters, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner?
We always laugh, as the Wile E. Coyote character, runs off the edge of a cliff. For a second, before he realizes there is no more ground beneath him, his legs still pumping away as if he's still on ground.
This is so true today.
To quote this article...
"At the same time, there is growing scrutiny on spend: 85% of B2B businesses have seen delays in decisions over spending and almost 70% delays in payment schedules, according to Marketing Week and Econsultancy’s research in August. There are numerous anecdotes of all new spend commitments having to go via the CFO or the board."
Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing focused on advertising, email and cold calling. This is known as "interruption" and "broadcast". Why? Because an advert, and email or a cold call; interrupts me and then you pitch (broadcast) your message.
The modern buyer has has enough of these interruptions.
Problem is, that there are articles like the one that I have "passled" that are peddling the same old rubbish, like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Why? Because they have a vested interest that you continue to make the old mistakes. They don't have a business if you stop believing.
Another problem that Marketing have is that the message is always "buy my product, because it's great".
Look at Oracle, SAP, Sage they all sell competing products, but the messages are all the same. There is no differentiation. As a buyer, who knows little about what they sell, the message is confusing, product related and bares little difference from similar products.
Why Does This Matter?
It matters because, as a buyer, I don't care about product or service, I want the best for my business and if you don't give me straight answers, in a non salesly way, then I will just move on. Market leader or not.
While there has been a shift to digital, covid 19 has accelerated that shift.
We Have Transformed In Work and Play on Social Through The Pandemic
In this report by Simon Kemp he outlines the extent that social media has become part of our lives.
But what does this mean for your sales and marketing?
Simon Kempresearch states
4.57 billion people around the world now use the internet, accounting for close to 60 percent of the world’s total population.
The internet and Social media isn't a fad and it's not going away, in fact usage is accelerating, and now a tipping point has been reached.
Fact: Social Media Has Reached a Tipping Point
Simonmore people on social media than not on social media.
points out that there are now
Covid_19 Is Forcing Transformation of B2B sales and Marketing
B2B Sales and Marketing is distressed. The old marketing methods, and it's ability to work gets less and less with everyday. As this article states, the B2B buyer is active on social and they don't want to play the old games anymore.
What As a Business Should You Do?
Your Business need to look to move your sales team from selling and marketing on an analogue prospective to selling digitally. In effect lifting the sales teams territory and putting it online.
What Does Digital Selling Look Like?
You need a Linkedin profile, this is Now part of the standard sales kitbag. It needs to be buyer centric, so written for the modern digital buyer.
You need a network, so as we said, lift your territory online. You also need content, what do I mean by that?
Here is an example of content. Not time consuming and if you do it the right way (we can teach and coach you) then you should be able to get results like this.
, he's a partner of ours. He posted a piece of content, it currently has 165 likes and 37 comments and has been viewed 18,292 times.
It's created for him 124 leads.
28 outbound connections.
13 new inbound connections.
6 meetings (1 CEO, 1 COO, 2 MDs, 2 FDs)
1 Proposal
All from 10 minutes of work, all for free!
My Sales team are All Over Social!
I realise that your sales team say they are "all over social", I realise that you may have completed a LinkedIn course in the past, this maybe the case but Covid_19 has accelerated this change and these things are not good enough another.
Covid 19 also means there is less business around, so you will need to look at competitive advantage and remote selling will offer you this.
Helping People With This is What We Do
I have no idea what sector you work in and I have no idea of we can help you. But we are helping clients in Manufacturing, Professional Services, Retail, Automotive (Retail), Hi-Tech, Telecommunications, etc etc. Anywhere where there is a B2B salesforce or B2C where there is a considered purchase.
If you want more information about how we turned social selling from being an art into a science contact me here or one of the DLA Ignite team local to you
At the same time, there is growing scrutiny on spend: 85% of B2B businesses have seen delays in decisions over spending and almost 70% delays in payment schedules, according to Marketing Week and Econsultancy’s research in August. There are numerous anecdotes of all new spend commitments having to go via the CFO or the board. To follow our waterslide analogy, we can imagine a rather stern attendant hoicking people out half-way down and sending them back to the top to do it properly next time.
https://www.marketingweek.com/pipeline-inertia-silent-killer-b2b-brands/
