3 B2B Personalization Strategies to Close More Deals

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It’s personal, intimate, and it closes more deals.

I’m talking about B2B personalization. Much like a store employee greeting a regular customer by name, personalization helps your B2B firm close more deals and deliver remarkable buying experiences.

Every day, thousands of service businesses use this tactic to increase their revenues.

In this post, I’m going to share 3 B2B personalization strategies you can use right away to close more deals.

The Need for Personalization

If you own or run a B2B firm, it’s time to acknowledge that buyers want to be approached with relevant offers at the right moments, not when it’s convenient for a sales rep. They have little to no patience for ill-timed, generic pitches. And in a competitive market, this personalized engagement can often be the key to success.

B2B Buyers seem to agree as well:

• A recent survey found that 80% of buyers don’t believe that the salespeople they deal with understand their business.


• 1/3 of buyers want the opportunity to see a service/product in action very early on. (Hubspot Buyers Research)


• 23% of deals go dark because reps fail to engage buyers through the entirety of the sales process. When sales professionals are unable to provide ongoing value, the buyer feels no obligation to maintain a dialogue.


• 74% of B2B buyers choose the salesperson who was first to add value and insight in their buying process.

Need to say, your business can benefit a lot from personalization.

Let’s take a look at some strategies you can use to create these personalized experiences:

1. Understand Their Business

I believe that any business owner, consultant or sales person that attempts to work with an organization, regardless of size, can greatly increase the value they bring to an engagement by helping a customer or prospect deconstruct their own customer journey. Provide value-added advice and insight by researching every stage of the customer journey an organization uses to interact with and move its prospects to customers.

– What do they do to create awareness?

– How do they educate prospects and customers?

– What do they offer for a prospective client to sample their product or expertise?

– What do they do to convert prospects to paying clients?

– How do they generate referrals?

2. Showcase Early

That’s right! They want a very tangible understanding of what they’re potentially buying, and they want it right away.

Today’s shift in buying now demands a very tangible way prospects can experience your offer.

Essentially a buyer wants the opportunity to see and experience a service/product in action very early on.

How do you properly align your marketing to match this new buying behavior?

The answer is offering prospects a way to sample your expertise, product or service. This can be in the form of free consultations, money-back guarantees, demos, seminars, proof of concept, audits, trail offers, assessments, etc. You could also provide assessment tools or gap analysis reports to help them to see how your solution can best help them achieve their goals. Really this is an audition and it’s where you need to deliver more than anyone could possibly consider doing.

3. Educate Them on Their Reality

Though modern customers can glean a lot of the information online, they still crave the insight of an expert—someone who knows the territory and stays up on the latest industry news.

Here’s a framework that forces you to get the right answers to questions that will educate prospects and clients on their reality.

• What’s going on inside the company?


• What’s happening with notable parties outside the company — competitors, suppliers, etc.?


• Who do the buyers you’re working with report to, and/or who are the influencers in the company?


• How does this company “keep score” metrics-wise, and how do you help them in what they do?

Next Level: Here’s a framework that forces your prospect to face the reality in his or her own company:

• What is the cost of not improving performance?


• Why hasn’t the problem been solved before?


• Who needs to be on the team to ensure our solutions are approved?


• Who might oppose this solution?

So, let me ask you this – how many other business owners and salespeople are approaching companies with this level of value and insight?

Conclusion

Business owners continue to face significant hurdles in the B2B marketplace. This can be a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full scenario. There has never been a better time to adapt, change, and leverage the new selling tools available in today’s digital age. You have unprecedented access to CRM systems, competitive data, social selling tools, web alerts, and real-time analytics. With the right help, business owners can hone their knowledge and skills to help them prepare like never before and truly differentiate themselves to buyers.

Source: B2C