Buyer behaviour in the B2B space has changed dramatically in the last few years. For example, B2B clients now engage with vendors over ten or more channels, up from an average of five in 2016, as per McKinsey. This is understandable because today's buyers want to gather as much information as possible before making a purchase, and their research can span multiple touchpoints. While the McKinsey survey focused on B2B decision-makers in the US, the preference for omnichannel digital interactions in B2B sales is a global phenomenon.
By delivering smooth omnichannel experiences as your prospects and customers progress through the sales funnel, you can generate more leads while also enhancing prospect engagement and retention.
Here are a few channels to consider as you look at generating B2B sales leads:
- Email marketing - Emails are an excellent way to reach people who are already familiar with your brand, products, or services. Since people can opt in and out of receiving your emails, you can easily narrow down valuable prospects to follow up with.
- Social media platforms - From Facebook bio links to Instagram story swipe-ups, social media platforms encourage your audiences to take action in interactive and convenient ways. As they engage with your brand, you can, in turn, get a better understanding of their interests and pain points. This data can then be used to improve lead generation.
- Corporate events - A great way to educate your audiences about your brand is to have experts speak about it. Virtual conferences and webinars can increase brand awareness and attract new leads. Similarly, offline events – such as trade shows, conferences and roundtable discussions - help you build real-world connections with customers and use direct human interaction to inspire trust.
- Blogs - To drive more traffic to your website, consistently publish engaging and educational content relevant to your target audience. Over time, they will come to trust your business and feel comfortable sharing their contact information.
- Web forms - These digital questionnaires can help you easily gather and analyse data, respond quickly to information requests, and efficiently qualify leads. Remember to keep them short and simple and place them where they can grab the reader’s attention.
- Chatbots - A good chatbot can swiftly respond to customer queries, send personalised offers and assist businesses in learning who is visiting their site and what content influences purchases. They can also gather valuable customer data for sales reps to help them close more deals.
- Mobile apps - These days, almost all businesses require an app. Useful for people who are always on the go, these apps can help you stay connected to your customers all the time and provide you with valuable user-generated data that can help you craft targeted lead generation campaigns.
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How to optimise your omnichannel strategy to generate more leads
Get the most out of different sales channels by keeping these points in mind:
- Focus on a few channels: The more, the merrier is not always true! Spreading yourself too thin across all platforms could result in money and resources being wasted. Rather, concentrate on a few channels that are most effective for you and use them to the fullest extent. Identify where people reach out to you, why, and for what reasons. This can help you target the right people through the right channels.
- Understand the capabilities of each channel: And use them to your advantage. For example, you can automate email communication to ensure regular and timely follow-ups with customers.
- Produce unique content with a consistent message: Every channel adheres to a unique aesthetic or code. To fulfil the expectations of the audience on that platform, you should adjust the tone and delivery of your content. For instance, Twitter posts need to be short and to the point in order to highlight the most crucial aspect of your business or product. A LinkedIn message can be longer, but it needs a value proposition to be effective.
- Use CRM to build deeper customer relationships: A CRM solution collates customer data from across channels into one place to help you uncover deeper insights into your audiences’ needs. It also simplifies communication across channels and enables you to build seamless omnichannel experiences.
Get a single customer view for personalised sales with Salesforce
Managing multiple B2B sales channels and conversations – online or offline – can be a huge challenge. To send the right message to the right person at the right time, it is crucial to collect and aggregate customer data from multiple channels on a single platform. This helps ensure unified, customised messaging and a smoother customer experience.
With the help of Salesforce Sales Cloud, you can simplify the process of gathering and collating data from several sources to create valuable leads. Sales Cloud enables you to comprehensively understand your prospects and customers, by giving an overview of activity history, important contacts, communications, and internal account discussions. It also allows you to get insights from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, letting you optimise your strategies across channels and attract more leads. Thus, Sales Cloud allows you to identify the most relevant B2B sales channels, optimise them for your desired outcomes and accomplish your lead generation objectives.
Find the ideal blend of channels and campaigns for your business.
Take a closer look at the world’s #1 sales solution.
