INTERVIEW WITH
Rich Smith
Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Home Loans
B2B Customer Acquisition: The role of human engagement in a world of digital-first enterprise marketing
Prospects want to do their own research, explore solutions in their own time and actively seek out content that adds value to their working lives.
What are your thoughts on the generational differences across the buyer landscape and how can these be bridged?
A study I read recently shows that it now takes 10 - 15 touch points before a prospect is ready to speak with a sales representative. The majority of these touch points are now digital, with only a couple of physical touchpoints happening at events or conferences. To successfully sell in this digital-first world, businesses need to accept that they are no longer in charge of the sales process. Prospects want to do their own research, explore solutions in their own time and actively seek out content that adds value to their working lives. This means businesses need to create engaging and valuable content that prospects can easily find online.
One of the benefits of this approach is that prospects will start to identify themselves when they interact with or download content from a business’ website. This helps companies to avoid spending large sums of money targeting people who may not even be relevant. To ensure that they only target the right people, sales and marketing teams need to work cooperatively and constantly measure the levels of engagement. Over time this will reveal when the best time for a sales representative to get in touch with a prospect is.
When prospects can see a seller’s face clearly and read their expressions, it is much easier for them to build trust.
What can marketing do to support sales in acquiring greater market and industry knowledge?
It is critical that organizations invest in virtual selling techniques. There are very few buyers now who actually want to meet sales representatives face-to-face. The largest challenge with virtual selling techniques is that building rapport takes longer than it would when meeting physically. When prospects can see a seller’s face clearly and read their expressions, it is much easier for them to build trust. A simple way for sales representatives to overcome this challenge is by investing into the equipment they use for video calls. A good quality camera is an obvious first step, but did you know that most people are actually more sensitive to sound than they are visual? So with this in mind, a good microphone is crucial to being received well in a virtual environment.
Prospects will only buy from a company when they feel that the company genuinely cares about their problems and has a relevant solution for them.
RICH SMITH
Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Home Loans PENFED
What is the role of marketing in modern B2B purchases?
In modern B2B purchases, marketing’s job is to create authenticity and credibility on a large scale. Prospects will only buy from a company when they feel that the company genuinely cares about their problems and has a relevant solution for them. The key to establishing authenticity and credibility as a marketing team is to be fully customer-centric. Prospects can tell a mile off when a business isn’t authentic and once that doubt has been planted, it’s very hard to recover. Marketing teams should build rapport with their audience by using the same language as their customers, providing valuable content for prospects to consume and clearly communicating to prospects how the company’s offering has helped other prospects that look like them.
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