MARKET VIEW 31
Eryn Peters
B2B Customer Acquisition: The role of human engagement in a world of digital-first enterprise marketing
SEO should be a high priority for businesses to ensure that their value-led content is seen at the right time in the buyer’s journey.
Is entertaining content the best way to attract a buyer's attention?
There is a common misconception that content marketing should be a form of entertainment for buyers, and we've become so immune to advertising now that buying someone's attention is becoming increasingly less viable. Instead, the opportunity to reach and engage new buyers is to create valuable, informative content that is highly relevant to their life or a problem they might be trying to solve. Video content is particularly powerful for this as it allows companies to provide information in a form that buyers digest outside of their working lives too. Alongside this, SEO should be a high priority for businesses to ensure that their value-led content is seen at the right time in the buyer’s journey.
As the Information Age continues to evolve rapidly around us, decision-makers have often already completed much research before clicking on a Call-To-Action or completing a form. As a result, salespeople are becoming increasingly involved much later in a buyer's journey. This puts the emphasis on marketing to create trust-building content that buyers can easily find online when performing their initial research. If authenticity and credibility have already been established before a salesperson's first contact with a buyer, then the salesperson has a far greater chance of having a meaningful conversation with the buyer.
The first is that they must create content and resources that buyers can access at any time and not rely exclusively on a salesperson to answer their questions.
Should sales leaders prioritise face-to-face meetings?
The pandemic forced all of us to evaluate what face-to-face actually means. Traditionally it meant being in the same room as another person, but now having a video call is largely considered to be face-to-face. This has shifted buyers' expectations regarding engaging with a salesperson, and they no longer expect a salesperson to make themselves available physically, and video conferencing now plays a significant role in the buyers' journey.
The evolution of this will be companies learning to work asynchronously. Although physical encounters may have reduced in number, we're more connected to others around the world than ever before - which is a massive opportunity for businesses to sell on a global level. But working in different time zones presents its own challenges. Video conferencing may only be able to take place in small windows of the day when multiple time zones are online at the same time, and therefore there are two important actions for businesses to take if they want to create positive sales experiences on a global level. The first is that they must create content and resources that buyers can access at any time and not rely exclusively on a salesperson to answer their questions. The second is building out a sales team that is distributed across different time zones, so that when buyers need human interaction, they do not have to endure the frustration of scheduling or waiting until their contact is online.
This independent access to information creates more trust in a buyer than if it were to come from a salesperson.
ERYN PETERS
Do sales teams need to be seen as thought leaders to be successful?
Sales teams are rightfully hesitant to produce thought leadership content. Younger generations of decision-makers have a natural distrust of content sources that are new to them and have a perception that thought leadership coming from a salesperson is only because the salesperson wants them to buy something, not because they are genuinely sharing something valuable. Buyers are far more likely to trust thought leadership that comes from a topical expert. So instead of looking to create their own thought leadership content, salespeople should seek to amplify thought leadership content produced by the experts of their industry. Modern buyers are looking for social proof - be it from an industry influence or a third-party product/services comparison publication that they trust - and this independent access to information creates more trust in a buyer than if it were to come from a salesperson.
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