MARKET VIEW 16
Rob Alport
HEAD OF MARKETING
B2B Customer Acquisition: The role of human engagement in a world of digital-first enterprise marketing
The best kind of connection will be an invitation to become part of a community, enabling participation from there, which as soon as I recognise it as a valuable connection, I will then reach out directly, and take it from there.
Following on from a recent Gartner study, it is determined that most millennials prefer a digital-first B2B purchase setting. In light of this, should enterprise sales organisations make changes to the sales and marketing process? If so what changes?
Seeing as I am a millennial who has come into a decision-making position in recent years, I am experiencing this phenomenon personally. I do believe that there is still a role for human interaction. The role has got to be more about offering value-led experiences. The salesperson will need to position themselves as someone that will provide and add value to the process, otherwise, they will not be engaged with at all. This value-add can be a combination of industry trends or industry expertise, but also broadening and creating a level of trust. For example, I get a number of LinkedIn connection requests, which I very rarely accept. The best kind of connection will be an invitation to become part of a community, enabling participation from there, which as soon as I recognise it as a valuable connection, I will then reach out directly, and take it from there.
The role of the online sales process has to be a continual drip-feed of awareness, a content of insight that positions this individual organisation as an entity that can be trusted and that has value to add.
Do you believe that enterprise sales teams should be investing more in virtual selling trends and interactions?
When we're talking about virtual selling, it's not just literally shifting a sales conversation online, it's a much more involved process. There is some research out there, which shows that at any one time only approximately 2% of organisations are actually in the market for a particular solution. This may be because they're either not aware that there is a problem that needs to be solved, or that this is just not the right time for them. This could be due to buying cycles that they're locked into with ongoing contracts, etc. Therefore the role of the online sales process has to be a continual drip-feed of awareness, a content of insight that positions this individual organisation as an entity that can be trusted and that has value to add. When that time arrives, then the virtual setting will be facilitated much more easily.
In terms of joining webinars as opposed to the ‘in-person’ events, and all these networking experiences, the only way, in my mind, to get that salesperson into that role successfully is to create that sense of community. This is where the salesperson could be participating and actively adding value to a community where the potential buyer is active. And then, taking advantage of the connections that they're building there, potentially to scale, which means that they’re able to sell and be trusted more effectively.
I know, again, I can speak from personal experience; As I engage within communities, I am more likely to trust my peers and other participants who add value and who create valuable conversations. Rather than, waiting for somebody to reach out to me and say; ‘By the way, we've got this available…’, ‘This is going to solve all of your problems…’. I have no idea how many times I’ve been offered that, and I've never found that silver bullet, which is going to solve every problem I've ever experienced…
The marketing team’s role is to provide the insights and to provide the toolkit and training, and the trigger points of when to engage with an organisation.
What can the marketing function be doing to align with the sales teams and assist with procuring more market and industry knowledge? What more can be done?
It is a really good question and comes to the point of account-based marketing. Where sales and marketing should effectively be working side-by-side. They should be virtually indistinguishable, whether in the sales team or in the marketing team, in terms of the objectives that need to be achieved.
The marketing team’s role is to provide the insights and to provide the toolkit and training, and the trigger points of when to engage with an organisation. Say, one of the sales team of ours is particularly focused on assessing an account, then they should be able to come to the marketing function and say, ‘This is who I'm talking to…’, then marketing would be able to give insights, advising who will be able to engage a topic and direct that conversation. Rather than the old-school way, try and just tick off as many different features and benefits as possible until you eventually find a match if you can't. When sales and marketing are aligned, buyers will approach your business.
As soon as you create an emotional connection, you are also going to then create a more memorable connection.
ROB ALPORT
Head of Marketing BLUEOPTIMA
Should sellers of enterprise technology and services adapt their sales and marketing approach to address the generational shift towards entertainment-seeking buyers, and if ‘yes’ how? If not why not?
Absolutely! There is no question about it. As soon as you create an emotional connection, you are also going to then create a more memorable connection. The trick is to be able to balance that with not just being funny for the sake of being funny, but actually, do you get to see the wiring of the neural pathways?
Creating humour is absolutely a great way of engaging with people, but at the same time again there's almost a humour or an emotional connection overload, which is the other risk. You see this trend across the different platforms, that you can scroll for 10 minutes on virtually any platform nowadays and you'll probably be met with 20 or 30 different entertainment-targeted messages.
How do you create that stand out? It’s that it's not just got to be entertaining, it's also got to be educational. This is where a lot of organisations and a lot of individuals are trying to go for the ‘vanity metrics of engagement’. They get the likes and the laughs, but did they create any thought-provoking material? Did they provide anything constructive? Did it make people think?
If you're in a buying cycle, then you already kind of have an idea of what you're looking for and you're more likely to apply a quantitative level of intelligence. When appealed to in an emotional level of intelligence, you're less likely to react to something that's particularly cool. You’ll simply say; ‘Cool! That was cool’. Whereas if you're on a B2C side, seeing as your own money is at risk here, therefore you won't be accountable to anybody else, and so intuitively, there has to be a slight difference in attitude overall.
In order to be successful, it is important to have consistency throughout everything being done. Creating that trust and expertise, and not being [ereived as a seller. Rather someone that facilitates sales.
BlueOptima provides a market-leading strategic benchmark to monitor software development productivity, quality, and cost to optimise the efficiency of software development investments. In 2009 BlueOptima was introduced as a SaaS service to shake up the global software industry with an algorithm that helps improve developer efficiency.
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