Introduction
Both the adoption and impact of digital marketing have been accelerating in recent years, thanks to technological advances, the expansion of digital advertising platforms, and the COVID-19 pandemic, amongst other factors. New software in particular—including marketing automation programs, enhanced analytics capabilities, and AI-driven targeting tools—has made it easier than ever to facilitate outreach and nurturing campaigns at scale.
Yet buyers—especially those in complex, lengthy B2B sales cycles—still crave human connection at different points in the sales process.
Taking the human touch out of sales campaigns entirely results in an impersonal experience that’s vulnerable to disruption by competitors.
But at the same time, involving human agents at every stage of the sales process is expensive (and often unsustainable).
How can organisations balance their need to deploy hands-on, human personalisation, whilst also achieving sufficient scale to meet their growth goals?
To better understand how marketing leaders are navigating these competing demands, we invited 74 B2B sales and marketing leaders from multiple industries to share their thoughts on the role of emotion and human connection in the B2B sales process—as well as how it can be delivered to buyers at scale.
In this Market View report, several respondents spoke to the importance of maintaining a human-centred perspective. “The line between being a buying representative of an organisation and being an individual with a personal life is blurring more and more online,” remarked one. How this convergence manifests within organisations varies. One participant described how their company went so far as to build their USP around offering customers and prospects access to personal support. Another incorporates hands-on factory tours into their sales process, engaging not just prospects’ desire for hands-on guidance but for multisensory experiences as well.
None of this is to say that concrete metrics are no longer important. In fact, many of the leaders we spoke to claim to be more data-driven than ever. However, the types of metrics they prioritise appear to be evolving. According to one, “We have completely transformed what success looks like, putting together traditional quantitative metrics and qualitative metrics oriented to brand personality and building trust with consumers.”
The vast majority of sales and marketing leaders told us that while engagement that kicks off in a digital format may be the future, speaking to people directly is still a compelling source of advantage in B2B. This is especially true when buyers are spending large amounts on complex platforms and systems. These customers value expert guidance and advice when comparing different vendors and understanding how they might fit into their existing infrastructure.
Integrating the human and the digital confers a number of advantages. When companies better understand their prospects and target accounts, they can not only minimise the number of low-quality leads they receive from digital campaigns, but they can also decrease the administrative time required to run them. Human interaction also has the effect of reducing lead funnel dropout, as well as increasing the likelihood that any content marketers create will resonate with buyers’ emotions and values.
These qualitative impacts can, in turn, have a significant effect on quantitative measures of success. “Sales must get involved at the right point,” remarked one participant. “The quality of that engagement is based on data.” If you’re just starting to explore ways to inject the human experience into sales more efficiently, we hope the insights shared here will enable you to not just form more meaningful connections with prospects, but to maximise your campaign conversion rates and ROI whilst minimising customer acquisition costs as well.
Take a look at the individual experiences they’ve shared, and don’t miss the three key tips for injecting the human experience into the B2B sales process at the back of this report.
