INTERVIEW WITH
Rusty Bishop, Ph.D.
CMO & Down Funnel Specialist
B2B Customer Acquisition: The role of human engagement in a world of digital-first enterprise marketing
Companies that fail to embrace the new opportunities that digital technology brings will soon find themselves struggling to keep up, the time to start changing is now.
How will digital technology change sales and marketing?
Millennial decision makers don’t want to meet with sales representatives. They have an inherent lack of trust in sales reps, and instead trust the information that they can find for themselves online. As even younger generations of decision makers start to emerge after millennials, the distrust in sales representatives is only going to grow. This means that organizations need to make seismic, fundamental changes to the way they sell or risk being disrupted.
It won’t be long until we see hyper-personalized, digital-first buying journeys fuelled by AI, significantly reducing the number of sales representatives required. A key part of this will be virtual reality, which will give buyers even more power to ‘experience’ a product without having to engage directly with sales representatives. Companies that fail to embrace the new opportunities that digital technology brings will soon find themselves struggling to keep up, the time to start changing is now.
companies will need to become hyper-adaptive in the way they build structure and train sellers to sell in virtual situations.
What challenges will the rise of digital technology bring to sales and marketing?
One of the biggest challenges that the rise of digital technology will bring to sales and marketing teams is that prospective customers will have more and more power to stay anonymous online. Without knowing who their prospects are and understanding what matters to them through tracking their online activity, it becomes nearly impossible to sell directly. Many businesses have talked about how they are embracing AI and blockchain technology, but in reality they probably haven’t given proper thought as to how their sales approaches will need to change in the age of anonymity.
To overcome this, companies will need to become hyper-adaptive in the way they build structure and train sellers to sell in virtual situations. The speed of change is so fast that an annual sales training meeting will quickly see sales teams being left behind. Instead it is likely that training to sell in the latest virtual environment will need to take place at least once a quarter. This could be a big shock to those who have grown up selling in more traditional ways, so expect to see the hiring profile for sales teams change dramatically too.
Providing value starts by really understanding who your buyers are, and then breaking down the buyers into subsets based on what problems they are trying to solve and the jobs that they are trying to complete.
RUSTY BISHOP, PH.D.
CMO & Down Funnel Specialist AI MARKETING MAKEOVER
How can B2B brands better leverage social media?
People crave what they don’t know. This is what entertaining, value-led content on social media has proved so effective for B2C brands. Many B2B brands have attempted to replicate this success by putting extra resources behind their own social media efforts, but rarely get it right. This is because they typically focus too much on the entertainment aspect of their content, and don’t give enough attention to providing value.
Providing value starts by really understanding who your buyers are, and then breaking down the buyers into subsets based on what problems they are trying to solve and the jobs that they are trying to complete. Once you have this understanding, it becomes much easier to understand what insights or tactical advice is really going to add value to the lives of buyers. The content then just needs to put that information in a clear, easy to understand format that can be consumed in the shortest time possible. If the content happens to be entertaining then that’s great, but the number one focus should always be providing value.
Get in touch
Share this page
+44 (0)1273 102811
