Too often we forget that before being a customer, we are prospects and that as such, we also expect a frictionless experience in our intention to buy. Let's offer a prospect experience that lives up to what we demand!
What is the problem?
Email marketing has increased
As you have certainly noticed, in recent months, our email boxes have been much more solicited by canvassing emails: prospecting is once again at the heart of businesses' commercial strategy. Therefore, it is crucial for a Business Developer, especially when they have followed a Akimbo Bootcamp, to take care of your prospect experience in order to differentiate yourself in this influx of requests in order to better convert.
The prospect gets information differently
Easier said than done at a time when the modes of operation in B2B are similar to those of B2C... The prospect gets information on his own via various channels (search engines, social networks, webinars and other sponsored articles). However, despite this (over) information, it seems that only 11% of prospects will contact a sales representative to obtain information on the product or service concerned!
So how do you create the best prospect, engaging and personalized experience?
Think of new engagement platforms
Sales engagement platforms (SEP)
Building a prospect experience necessarily starts with a message and quality content. This message will be all the more impacting if you know your ” ideal customer profiles ” and” Buyer Personas ” !
We draw your attention to content creation : the content should instead focus on The resolution of “pain” to anticipate objections, rather than about the functionalities of your product and/or service.
Today, there are a myriad of tools to automate prospecting work in order to focus on what matters most: The call and the appointment ! Here, we are not talking about marketing automation tools, but rather tools for sales teams: Sales Engagement Platforms (SEP).
The user experience is much more refined than an ERP or other CRM. All you have to do is set up one or more work sequences (a series of logical actions) with the target (for example: 1 email on D0 + 1 phone call on D3 + 1 Linkedin action on D3 + 1 SMS, etc.). The SEP will automatically manage your actions according to the strong and weak signals made by your prospect: if the prospect opens an email x times, transfers it to x people, or clicks on a link x times, then you will be notified by the SEP immediately and can take a new action.
Optimizing prospecting actions (via the best channel and at the best time) offers the opportunity to rationalize your time and focus on the targets that best respond to your actions.
The benefits of SEPs:
The advantages of SEPs lie in their ability to:
- Interconnect with a set of tools (email box, telephone system, CRM, Linkedin, Sales Navigator, etc.);
- Standardize the actions carried out throughout your ecosystem (e.g.: log your activities automatically in your CRM, etc.);
- Optimize and diversify content at each stage (email templates, links to articles, videos, documents, etc.);
- Manage the pace of actions according to the volume of your target (e.g. managing the sending of emails between 7:30 and 8:10 to a maximum of 35 contacts, etc.);
- Notify sales representatives in relation to the most reactive targets (e.g.: trigger a call task automatically after 3 email openings in the same day);
- Facilitate and centralize team note-taking on a single platform.
It is in particular thanks to all these advantages offered by SEPs that you will be able to optimize and streamline your prospect experience.
You thus rationalize the way you communicate and optimize your time!
Optimize the use of your CRM
I still often hear my contacts say to me:” If I had Salesforce I would sell more ”. No, your CRM won't help you:
- Complete your sales team's agenda;
- Close sales.
CRMs are rarely optimized
In a large number of companies, the use of CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.) is not optimized.
There are many reasons, we can mention a few of them:
- Poor configuration of the tool with a use that is more designed for management than for sales operations;
- A poor image of the tool that can be seen as a “cop” by managers;
- A user interface that is not very ergonomic;
- Poor initial training for Sales and therefore poor handling;
- A lack of information entry by salespeople (appointments, call tasks, documents sent, information obtained during exchanges, etc.).
Thus, CRM is more like a storage warehouse where management thinks they can accumulate a war chest, often forgetting that the rate of data obsolescence is of the order of 25% to 30% per year ! (IKO System study).
SEP makes it possible to optimize CRM
In fact, this is where SEPs come in all their senses, in particular for:
- Meet the fundamental needs of the salesperson: to be able to prospect automatically with the right message to the right target;
- Meet the needs of the sales manager, be able to capture information that is not present in the CRM.
You will have understood it, a “Sales Engagement Platform” is not there to replace but to complement and maintain the CRM up to date.
Unlike your CRM, do not choose a SEP for the functionalities it will offer you, otherwise, you already know the result of this investment...
Set your sights on a solution adapted to your situation, and which should allow you to meet the needs of the sales team.
It is crucial to have an up to date CRM
Still skeptical about SEPs?
A final statistic should allow you to better understand the current situation of your sales team: nowadays, B2B Sales spends only 40% of their time selling, leaving 60% to make way for looking for prospects (9%), internal meetings (8%), internal meetings (8%), organizing and prioritizing opportunities and leads (7%), organizing and prioritizing opportunities and leads (7%), administrative tasks (9%), and manual entry of customer information (8%).
Approximately 26% of Sales time is spent on appointments (only) and 9% is devoted to prospecting.
For what reason?
The CRM is simply not up to date, the data is outdated, partial, missing, or simply wrong, leaving the salesperson with very little information.
All this can explain the lack of presence of salespeople in the field (Nomination Study).
