The accelerated pace post covid lockdown has fundamentally changed B2B buying behaviour—a decade of change in only a year or two.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels.
Let that sink in – humans do not want humans in a person-to-person sales process.
Today buyers want self-service options, with 70 per cent comfortable making purchases over $50,000 without talking to a sales representative.
Is your business selling the old way while your ideal buyers buy the new way?
Front-line salespeople across the western world report
extreme difficulty in getting in front of new ideal buyers – at the person-to-person level ( meeting with for a coffee)
Global reporting ( read a recent newsletter) where this decade’s trend has accelerated post covid lockdowns,
The reasons are many though personal safety – covid was the trigger, but also a lack of trust, credibility and authority with sales as a profession,
In some industries, such as software, the trustability of salespeople is a low 3%
Your ideal new buyers have changed – but many businesses have yet to change to meet their needs.
The financial impact is less growth, higher costs, and lower profitability today.
What do your ideal buyers want from your business when selling online – your digital business?
Your website is now your sales centre.
The list of essential changes to your site is a long one – the following are some evidence-based – must-haves,
- a business strategy – your plan to win more online,
- an integrated marketing strategy to win more attention and engagement to sell more online,
- McKinsey reports that 78% want performance guarantees – including a full refund,
- Real-time – always on customer service, is wanted by 72%
- Ability to purchase your offers from any channel -72%
- Outcomes-based pricing – 70%,
- Prices available online – without negotiation, 68%
These changes for many businesses are significant steps – making it harder to adapt quickly.
McKinsey found that 70% of B2B decision-makers are open to making fully self-serve or remote purchases up to $50,000, and 27% would spend more than $500,000 – without meeting a human.
Hopefully, this is a short-term covid blip driven; you might say – the answer appears to be no; the global trend is accelerating towards – digital selling only.
Other significant changes to impact revenue demand generation are
92% of buyers actively seek not to view paid advertising; think of Netflix – no advertising – so far.
92% of buyers only want to buy from thought leaders – this follows Google’s demand for businesses. If you want more online organic traffic (SEO) directed to your business, Google wants businesses to show their digital Expert, Authoritative and Trusted content on their website – EAT.
It is not only Google – we humans demand it – Google only reacts to human changes.
There has been a great success in combining – Public Relations + News + Marketing + Strategy for businesses.
Leveraging these has rapidly increased SEO organic performance, digital attention, engagement, trustability, authority and credibility of businesses for them to sell more.
Your checklist
- A generic off-the-shelf Go-To-Market plan – will not work.
- First, integrate Public Relations + News + Marketing + Strategy for businesses to sell more online.
- The more online channels a business deploys, the bigger the market share gains.
- Your ideal buyers prefer omnichannel buying, regardless of industry, country, size, or customer relationship stage.
In this order, potential buyers are buying,
- Digital-online, self-serve (social and websites)
- Remote human interactions (zoom)
- Person-to-person interaction – if needed,
Is your business providing this sequence?
The organic distribution wall problem: creating and finding enough attention from your ideal buyers online is critical to engage and sell more. Every business has to ramp up to jump over the distribution wall. It’s a critical step: faster growth is getting more eyeballs (attention) from your ideal buyers.
Social Selling – The best businesses of all sizes and industries in every country are reinventing themselves to Social selling to win more new buyers from new markets – faster. Social Influencing and Selling (#socialselling) – this is where your ideal potential buyers walk towards your business rather than your business chasing them.
It is a shock for many business leaders – how quickly the market has changed.
It is more of a shock for those that have yet to change.
Regards
David
