In uncertain times, the evolving norms of virtual work and social distancing have suspended B2B face-to-face sales and marketing efforts, creating demand gen and pipeline gaps for most businesses.
In this blog post, we’ll show you how you can close these gaps by using technology intelligence to successfully shift your resources and reprioritize your sales and marketing efforts in this increasingly virtual business climate.
Step 1 – Shift Investments from Events to Hyper-targeted Digital Campaigns
Many sales and marketers have relied on events to quickly generate relevant relationships with new prospects face-to-face. With most 2020 events being cancelled, businesses now need to generate conversations remotely using digital channels instead. But to make a conversion with remote prospects, your digital ads, calls, and emails need to be relevant and customized in order to generate attention and interest. Digital channels are a useful way to communicate because they allow you to get immediate feedback on your efforts so that you can target and customize your approach accordingly.
Step 2 – Prioritize Virtual Selling on Accounts with the Highest Likelihood to Buy
Today’s uncertain economic times make it more important than ever to concentrate sales and marketing initiatives on your best prospects. Using Technology Intelligence helps you quickly prioritize which of your prospects have the best fit and highest revenue potential. Specifically:
- Target Companies Using Key Technologies. Technology Installation information shows you what products your accounts have installed, including whether or not they are using competitor products or complementary solutions.
- Reach Out to the Big Spenders. IT Spend Intelligence shows you what your accounts typically spend in your product category. This way you can avoid wasting valuable marketing and sales resources on accounts without adequate budgets.
- Understand the timing of competitive contracts. Contract details show you when the products your accounts are using are up for renewal, allowing you to prioritize your target accounts at the most optimal time.
When you have instant access to Tech Intelligence, it becomes easy for your teams to prioritize their efforts on the accounts with the highest propensity to buy from you. It also keeps your sales and marketing teams aligned on the same accounts.
Step 3 – Generate More Opportunities with Account-Based Messaging
Any type of outreach you do to remotely based prospects is more likely to generate a response if it contains highly tailored and customized content. In fact, precise messaging that is tailored to the right prospects gets a 75% higher engagement rate than a generic message that is not personalized to your recipient’s situation. Here are 3 programs you can implement quickly when you have granular technology insights to guide your outreach:
- Competitive Take Out
Identify accounts using competitor products and target these accounts directly by showing how your solution addresses well-known pain points. - Complementary Targeting
Find accounts using a complementary product to yours and highlight how you can enhance their existing solution with your own product. - Cross-sell
If you have a family of products, identify customers who could be a great fit for one of your other solutions because they have nothing similar installed.
Start Using Tech Intelligence to Prioritize Your Outreach Now
With HG Insights, you can easily access Tech Intelligence from your CRM, MAP, or digital advertising platform. Here are the platforms and tools we have to make our insights immediately actionable to your virtual sales and marketing teams:
- HG Insights Platform: identify the companies with the highest propensity to buy using comprehensive technology installation information, granular IT spend intelligence and contract terms.
- HG for Salesforce: accelerate growth with world-class installed technology intelligence available directly in the world’s most popular CRM.
- HG for Marketo: better target, score, and nurture high value prospects by identifying the technologies they are currently using.
- HG for LinkedIn: use technology intelligence to precisely target your ad-spend to generate more leads on LinkedIn.
Parting Thoughts
This post provides guidance on how to prioritize and focus your efforts to fill any pipeline gaps that arise during uncertain times. As a team, we’ll continue to share new approaches that B2B companies are applying to stay sharp, engage thoughtfully, and be productive during these times of economic disruption.
