Here at Salesloft, we live and breathe digital sales. We also use the products we sell. So, today, we’re pulling back the curtain on data-backed insights and best practices that benefit our revenue teams, secure in the knowledge that these digital selling tips will also help your B2B businesses. No hype! Just tactical digital selling tips you can implement today to grow your revenue fast.
Tip 1: Use a personalized, multi-channel approach to increase prospect engagement and book more meetings
According to the most recent State of the Connected Customer from Salesforce, 66% of all customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. Business buyers are particularly demanding, with 85% expecting sales reps to demonstrate a firm understanding of their business.
Albert Rhee, lead product marketer at Salesloft, says meeting these expectations when you approach a prospect – in other words, personalizing your initial contact – leads to a 3X increase in reply rate compared to a non-personalized approach. Demonstrating your understanding of a prospect and their situation can help your message stand out from the crowd. Albert says, “Making sure that your email, your calls, the talk tracks you’re using are personalized to the [person or company] you’re reaching out to…then tying it back to something they are strategically concerned about and how your solution can uniquely help will increase responses.”
And as the quote indicates, be prepared to reach out across more than one channel. Outbound sales reps see a 4.7X increase in prospect engagement using a multi-channel approach and inbound sees an impressive 3.2X increase too. Persistence is essential, and everyone has different preferences regarding phone vs. email vs. text messages.
For more digital selling tips from Albert, check out his Think Tank talk.
Tip 2: When hiring SDRs, look for the ability to be concise
Whitney Moore, manager of inbound sales development at Salesloft, has a track record of hiring excellence. She looks for a few things in new SDRs that she believes lead to success every time, among them likability and being a lifelong learner. After all, people like to do business with people they like, and tech is ever-evolving.
But one of the most critical skills an SDR can bring to the table is the ability to be concise. Whitney explains, “We want someone on the discovery call that can dig in and ask a lot of great questions. The other person should be talking 70% of the time, so when it’s the SDR’s time to shine, they need to be as concise as possible to make sure we’re using the customer’s time – and ours – wisely.”
Check out Whitney’s Think Tank talk to hear more about the qualities she looks for in an SDR.
Tip 3: Add some polish and be proud of your LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn is the place to network in B2B sales. Many sales reps use LinkedIn Navigator to send InMail or research a new prospect. Assuming the message is personalized and piques their attention, a profile view is sure to follow. So think about your LinkedIn profile – does it showcase you in your best light?
As brand awareness manager for Salesloft, Tom Boston has spent lots of time coaching sales reps on getting the most out of their LinkedIn presence. “Have a look at your profile and think of it like a dating profile,” says Tom. “Does it let people know what you’re about, what you do, and is it clear what your company does? If your personality isn’t shining through, it’s probably worth blocking out 45 minutes to an hour to give it a refresh.” He suggests doing this regularly just to make sure you’re “very, very proud” of how you come across in each and every section. “If my profile is not up to speed, and I’m not proud of it, I’m falling down at the first hurdle when I invite a prospect to look at it.”
Tip 4: Maximize lead generation with website visitor behavior-based content delivery
It is vital to deliver content based on what your visitors tell you they want. With this in mind, David Thorton, marketing operations manager at Salesloft, has increased inbound leads using Drift, a conversational AI company known for its website chat and intelligence solutions. The Salesloft + Drift integration has been a game changer since it was announced in August of 2021.
“At first, we treated Drift as sort of our automated chat bot tool and, over time, we saw our stats start to decline. That’s because when you think about the buyer journey, folks aren’t coming to your website once, getting what they want, and then making a decision. Usually, there are several visits. With a chatbot like Drift, if they see the same content over and over and over they’re not going to click, they’re not going to engage, and they’re not going to get the information they’re looking for,” David says. “So we started to leverage Drift’s playbook analytics to help out with this type of continuous improvement. One thing we’ve really started to use is their Flow Analytics. You can see exactly where people are clicking, sort of what flows are causing them to engage much more regularly, and then from there, we simply give the people what they want.”
With the Salesloft + Drift integration, reps receive an alert as soon as a prospect hits the website. Based on the buyer’s intent, sellers can start a live conversation, book a meeting, or follow up later with an outbound personalized message based on the buyer’s actions.
Use These Digital Selling Tips to Ramp Your Revenue
You can get started on implementing each of these tips right away. And there are more great tips in the linked Think Tank talks – each less than 10 minutes long. Some tips may take a bit more time to perfect than others, but we are always here to share the lessons we learn. Happy selling!