9 B2B Sales Strategies Your Business Should Be Using

B2B sales

B2B sales is no longer just transactional. Gone are the days when your well-crafted pitch about your products’ excellence would bring leads to your door in large numbers. 

Now, individuals have access to loads of information to find the solutions they need. Furthermore, they are increasingly seeking connection-based rather than transactional interactions. As a result, winning B2B businesses have had to evolve their strategies.

This article will break down some of the top B2B strategies your business should consider using to generate and manage your leads.

Top B2B Sales Strategies

1. Solution Selling

Rather than focus on your product, you solve a specific problem with your proposition. 

Your salespeople channel all communications towards showing customers how purchasing the offering will bring the solution they need.

Why does this work? Unlike B2C customers, B2B buyers go shopping for ways to solve specific business problems, e.g., improving productivity, lead numbers, etc. So, they are more interested in their immediate gain than how amazing you claim your product to be.

So, with this sales strategy, your business can appeal directly to potential leads or customers' needs. That, in turn, increases the chances of purchase. 

2. Account-Based Selling

With Account-based Selling, your B2B sales team invests resources in targeting multiple stakeholders within the same company or "account ."So, instead of communicating to the marketing manager only, you could do the same for other team members, addressing their unique pain points.

Account-based selling has been a critical strategy for several years, especially for high-value purchases. That is because it largely encourages company-wide engagement, increasing the chances of them universally deciding to buy.

However, this strategy requires heavy collaboration between your sales and marketing teams. Additionally, each account is unique, so your business will need to adapt your process to suit each one.

3. Social Selling

Not Social media marketing!

Social selling is the practice of identifying and focusing on leads already in your network, especially on social media. You connect with specific promising leads and build rapport with them over time.

Social,Selling,Concept,Drawn,On,White,Background

The goal is to establish trust. So, while at it, your team must be careful not to appear spammy or salesy. They should also offer only insightful engagement and target the right prospects. You can gage these based on pre-set relevant criteria.

4. Market Research To Understand Your Audience

Your sales team must identify and study your ideal audience as with any successful strategy. Gather as much information about your prospects as you can. Know about the problems they face and show them how purchasing your product can solve them. 

Furthermore, find out on which platforms they hang out so that you can reach them effectively and with the right content. Such encourages audience engagement since it appeals to their needs. It thus increases the chances of turning them into buyers.

5. Lead Nurturing 

Lead nurturing is one of the timeless strategies you must adopt, especially for inbound funnels. 96% of prospects are not ready to purchase on the first interaction. So, you must keep sending them relevant, engaging content to help them in the buying process.

For an effective B2B sales campaign, you want to avoid making the sales pitch on the first interaction. Buyers reportedly do not like being sold to. Instead, keep your brand top of mind by maintaining contact with compelling information.

Email marketing is the main lead nurturing platform for most B2B businesses. With automation, you can even personalize these messages and send them to multiple leads at a time.

6. Using CRM Tools

Customer Relationship Management tools help businesses manage leads and customer information. It helps gather and store data that all your sales and marketing teams can access and use to establish connections.

Your business should consider installing CRM systems, especially if you deal with multiple prospects. They minimize data errors and facilitate faster, more effective communication that can be hard to do with human teams.

CRM tools also foster marketing and sales collaboration. That way, they can easily identify and hand over Sales Qualified leads as needed. This sync could greatly boost your B2B conversion rates

7. Avoid Aggressive Selling

Aggressive selling can drive off customers instead of attracting them to your company. The sales team should never be pushy with prospects. Rather, they should take the time to establish relationships and provide only relevant problem-solving information.

Such a strategy helps establish you as an authority. Since they are more likely to read your content this way, it increases the chances that they eventually consider you for purchase. 

8. Qualify Your Leads/Lead Scoring

With lead scoring, you rank your leads according to specific criteria to identify the more promising ones. Leads with the highest scores indicate that they are more likely to convert to sales. 

Lead scoring enables your team to identify and focus on high-value leads. That way, you don't waste time and resources on dead ends. They can dedicate ample resources to provide content and support to specific leads and drive them to buy. It makes your sales efforts more effective with higher conversion rates. 


9. Experience-Based Interactions

Customer experience should be the top priority for your business since it is increasingly a deciding factor for B2B buyers. Their overall experience involves every touchpoint across the journey.

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So, everything from their first visit to your site to support systems to buying process must be as seamless as possible. Ensure content and links are easy to find. That said, excess pop-ups, slow support responses, and generic content could all hurt your efforts.

Statistics show that B2B buyers are more likely to buy from businesses that offer them a personalized experience. 

Therefore, great experience beats compelling pitches. By focusing on customer experience, you increase their chances of eventually buying.

Conclusion

An effective B2B sales strategy is key to increasing conversions and generating more revenue for your business. Top-performing sales teams use the strategies above to keep their leads engaged and induce purchase. You could consider using them for your teams, regardless of industry or size. 

Our teams can help you create effective sales processes and strategies with the right automation. Get a free demo today, and subscribe to our blog for regular updates.

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About the Author

Priscilla Achieng

Priscilla Achieng is a lead Technical Content Writer at Funnelbud. A Content marketing professional by day, a passionate soccer fan by night, she also provides copywriting and SEO services for businesses of all sizes.

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