B2B companies have now recognized that they increasingly need to digitize and automate their sales processes. This is the only way to ensure that interaction with customers is contemporary and efficient. These eight tips will help you.
Sales Automation is a future-oriented and technology-supported approach that B2B companies use to prepare themselves for the future by using appropriate measures and software solutions to optimize their sales processes in a targeted manner and to place sales decisions on a solid basis. The basis for this is the interlocking of CRM and marketing automation systems. Because in addition to the possibility of collecting, linking, and evaluating relevant data, numerous tasks in sales can be simplified, accelerated, and improved.
1. Use valuable customer insights to optimally control the customer journey
With Sales Automation, the interactions of potential customers at various touchpoints can be automatically recorded and evaluated as part of a technologically supported scoring. This information is automatically used to create a detailed customer profile that shows, among other things, when a customer arrives at which touchpoint during their customer journey. This means that a B2B company can initially accompany and control the decision-making process with relevant content until the time is right for a sales meeting. The information collected up to that point will make it easier for the sales team to prepare an offer and present arguments.
2. Only make sales decisions based on reliable data
In the course of a customer’s decision-making process, a range of data is generated. He clicks through websites, downloads documents, and opens relevant email content. By not only storing your customer data in the CRM system but also enriching it with additional data from additional interactions, your sales team gets a 360-degree view of the needs and interests of potential and existing customers. Strategic decisions can thus be made just as reliably as operational measures can be taken. Instead of gut feeling, valid data becomes the basis for communication and interaction in digital B2B sales.
3. Develop potential customers efficiently
In B2B in particular, decision-making processes are often lengthy. Always being behind with manpower in order not to let potential customers off the hook is time-consuming and cost-intensive. A more efficient but no less individual option is an automated marketing and sales measures that guide a potential customer from the first contact via the website or the newsletter to the purchase or conclusion of a contract. With high-quality and useful content and professional tracking by marketing automation software, information can be played out to the customer and obtained from him in order to accompany him in an automated and personalized way and to automatically forward him to sales and the CRM system at the right moment to hand over.
4. Automatically boost your sales engine
The display of relevant content with parallel data collection is the key to getting to know customers and being able to exploit existing and emerging potential. A sales automation solution keeps sales up to date at all times. Thanks to e-mail tracking and lead scoring, he always knows what a potential or existing customer is doing, what interests him, or what he is doing. Even more: He receives valuable impulses with regard to existing customers and can thus offer new, supplementary, or higher-quality products and also track these offers automatically. In this way, the sales team can close deals with significantly less effort and at the same time have a higher probability.
5. Don’t leave your opportunity management to chance
A transparent and reliable information situation ensures fewer scattering losses in the acquisition phase. Sales employees can design discussions and offer more individually, which significantly reduces the number of coordination rounds and negotiation loops. With cross- and upselling campaigns, it is also possible to segment customers in a targeted manner and only play out offers or campaigns to contacts for whom the measures are relevant. With the help of a software-supported sales pipeline and sales funnel management, a permanent overview of sales activities is ensured. Analyzes and reports provide information about where there are problems in the sales process and what sales can be expected.
6. Simplify your contact and activity management
Hot leads, cold leads, customers about to close – it’s not easy to keep track and not lose any sales opportunities from the radar. The highest level of efficiency is required here: it is necessary to classify potential customers and existing contacts and to define appropriate measures for their processing. This does not always have to be personal contact, but can also be supported or replaced by automated processes. For example, you can use automated e-mail campaigns to stay in touch with undecided customers over a longer period of time. You automatically keep former customers or old contacts on the sales radar – without any additional effort. This leaves more time for the intensive support of the more lucrative customers and hot leads.
7. Reduce sources of error and legal risks to a minimum
Digital data management and automated workflows have one major advantage: any customer information can be easily recorded, maintained, updated, and made available to other departments and systems at a central location. Duplicates, incomplete data records, or incorrect address entries can also be checked and corrected automatically. Thus, all departments with customer contact always have an up-to-date and uniform picture of the customer. You can also use automatic processes to meet legal requirements – such as consent to advertising (double opt-in) or removal from the mailing list (opt-out) – in no time at all. All you need is an experienced software partner who will help you implement data protection and data security reliably.
8. Retain your customers and fuel business growth
The automated flow of customer-related information into the CRM system gives the sales department the opportunity to look after new and existing customers better and more personal. In this way, customers have an informed contact person at all times – regardless of whether they are in marketing, sales, or customer service. Without exception, interested parties and customers feel that they are in good hands, optimally supplied with information, and valued. This promotes sales growth and contributes to the growth of the company. In addition, sales automation offers opportunities to expand quickly, efficiently, and smoothly. For example, new countries and markets are much easier to enter if they are based on digital and automated processes, as these are easier to replicate and adapt.
Conclusion on sales automation
B2B companies need modern sales processes in order to be successful in the long term. The combination of a high-performance CRM system with an equally high-performance marketing automation solution forms the technological basis for designing customer-related processes both individually and efficiently. In competition, one thing is clear: if you don’t automate, you lose!