How to Increase B2B Sales? 9 Best Ways in 2024

Whether you have the best product, or your product and service have the most competitive prices, if people are clueless about it, they won’t buy it. This happens to both B2C and B2B selling, so there are many strategies and solutions needed if you want to increase the sales. Especially for B2B customers, they are way more complicated than B2C buyers because they are a group of decision-makers who make a detailed plan before purchasing your product. When it comes to B2B clients, it is more difficult to generate sales leads. But, don’t worry too much since this article is written to suggest you incredible ways to increase your B2B sales** to grow a business sustainably.

1. Put great efforts on gaining more leads

This is the step where you should use your methods to attract customers to fill your pipeline. It depends on the desired volume of targeted customers that make you choose the right tactics for getting more bulk buyers.

Generate B2B leads from your website visitors

Do you know that more than half of B2B customers are Millennials, and they would like to research a lot about your company before actually proceed to purchase your products? That will be an advantage for you to generate leads when they visit your site for more information. By using tools (Leadfeeder, for example) to identify anonymous visitors, you can get valuable primary data on the potential B2B customers for further transactions. You can also find B2B leads by scraping Google, use special platforms, and even reach out to them via email.

Use secondary lead databases

For many companies, especially if their businesses are still new, utilizing a database that someone else has built could be a wise choice. However, you must be careful with these sources of data because of the unknown quality, which might affect your business at a certain level.

You can search for UpLead or DiscoverOrg. These are two of the best lead providers in 2019 which they emphasis on ‘high-quality’ database of leads. Or, you can use LinkedIn as a reliable database as well since this network has a tremendous source of professionals in various fields, and of course, some of them could be the big potential clients that you don’t want to miss.

Going to tradeshows or industry meetups

If you want to directly meet your potential clients and get good quality contact information, then going to a tradeshow or industry meetup can help you with that. These events are places where many experts or big enterprises show up, so it could be a great opportunity to present your products or simply just put your foot in the industry network to gain more partners and customers in the future. Remember to keep their business cards or E-business cards in modern times, as well because they will be very helpful.

2. Use social media to warm up the leads

Forget pushy salespeople and boring brochures! The online world has changed drastically, and social media is now a gold mine for B2B sales. Today’s smart buyers hang out online, where they can easily find info and connect with companies. Ignoring this massive crowd is like leaving a pile of treasure buried in the sand.

According to sprout social, 78% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand and 77% will prefer it over a competition with a good experience on social media. Platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are awesome places to show off your skills and knowledge. Share interesting articles, industry insights, and engaging content that proves you’re the expert they need.

And don’t forget about word-of-mouth! Let happy customers sing your praises across your social channels. Their positive feedback builds trust and convinces others to give you a try.

So, ditch the old-fashioned sales tactics and dive into the social media world. It’s where your future customers are waiting to be discovered!

3. Use the cold calling channel actively

While the digital landscape has revolutionized communication, the power of a well-executed cold call endures. A surprising 2020 LinkedIn survey found that 69% of prospects welcomed a new salesperson’s call, and 82% were eager to meet with them. Direct phone interaction allows for real-time, human-to-human connection, building trust and understanding in a way that purely digital channels often cannot.

This level of individual interaction is what makes cold calling work. Cold calls who are good at what they do can tailor their message to the prospect’s wants and worries, which can lead to more important talks and higher response rates. This important benefit is missed when cold calling is seen as an old method.

Building real links, actively listening, and offering customized value offers are some of the best ways for B2B sales professionals to use this medium to its fullest potential and boost sales through the power of real-time human contact.

4. Marketing automation is needed

When you have a powerful list of email addresses, using marketing automation can make the process less painful and time-consuming so that you can focus on other important tasks. There are many marketing automation tools which can be easily found on the Internet. These tools can help send auto-responding yet personalized emails to nurture your contacts, and once customers go through the purchase cycle, it would be easier to increase the B2B sales.

Another marketing tool that can support you is a digital catalog. With this, you can show customers what you are providing by letting them see a clear overview of high-resolution pictures of products with prices, detailed descriptions, discounts and special offers. A digital catalog might remind customers of what they want to buy and suggest them with relevant products that they may need. Also, it can promote your latest products and trigger customers buying on impulse.

3. Speed up your processes to save time

Try to reduce your response time

The longer you wait to call a lead, the more chances you will lose a deal. Why? Because your customers could be taken by your competitors any second. Therefore, you should respond as quickly as possible to become the first vendor who talks to buyers. Also, by decreasing your response time, you will save much time to do other important tasks such as taking care of your top 20% of clients who will be producing 80% revenue of your business.

Take advantage of technology

Using CRM tools, marketing automation tools, B2B mobile ordering apps or digital catalogs as such is a great way to make the most of your and your sales reps’ time. These kinds of technology can do wonders for your business. Mundane tasks like filling orders, checking available products, making reports, collect data will be automatically undertaken so that your sales reps can still meet customers and manage their tasks at the same time.

You need to be flexible in this ever-changing world if you want to boost your sales and keep your business survive in the competition. That is why technology appears to help you tailor your offers to satisfy the customers or meet the market demands with more time saved.

4. Be a consultant NOT just a salesperson

Instead of pushing your sales reps to sell the products, try to make every person in your sales team become a consultant to your clients who can give them some solutions, information and understand what they actually need. Customers, especially B2B buyers will appreciate that a lot.

Don’t be too ‘sales-oriented’ because customers might run away. You should observe and analyze data from previous purchasing history to know customer behaviors. This can help your sales reps know what customers want to hear in order to make a sale. Help the customers with your sales material as educational content; let them know what types of products or services are in high demand in the industry; provide them with helpful market research, case studies and related resources which they might want to engage with.

Also, listening to your customers is a kind of method to increase B2B sales. Let the clients express their opinions about your products or services or their business problems. By doing this, your sales reps can understand customers and could probably give them a great piece of advice. Or, this can be a good way to explain to buyers how your products or services can solve the issues they are facing.

5. Build great relationships with your customers

Maintaining a long-lasting relationship with your B2B customers is a clever strategy if you want your sales to go up, but it is not easy. Since the relationships are based on trust, what you do to increase your credibility is the most important thing. Once the clients place their trust in your recommendations, judgments and predictions as such, they are willing to buy your products or services even in the long term.

The question is: how can you gain their trust? Your high-quality products, exceptional service and ability to provide relevant information are what you can deliver to your customers. Using technology and other sales solutions to save your time so that you can focus better on customers’ need. By doing so, customers will gradually realize that their decision on choosing your product or service was right.

Think about creating a network of referrals

You should keep in touch with B2B clients even after the sale has been done. According to the TAB 2014 Small Business Pulse Survey, 46% of entrepreneurs would likely to take recommendations from their peers who have used the product or service. This means that the word-of-mouth reference is still an effective way to get new potential customers. Thus, B2B business doers should create a strong relationship with current buyers in order to get more positive referrals in the future.

6. Pay attention to reports and analyze your data

Reports and data on your B2B sales are what you should care about regularly because these documents and numbers will demonstrate whether your decision you have made is right or not, which customer spends the most on your product, who has the most demand, the conversion rate from potential leads to actual sales. Based on the data, you can adjust your strategy, methods of approaching customers and reinforce your sales team as well.

Through the reports, you can know how much time sales reps spend to make a sale, or do they focus too much on serving a certain number of customers instead of selling? Having an overview of your business like this will help you develop suitable sales solutions in order to gain more revenue in the long run.

The sales cycle time period is important

The B2B sales cycle is usually longer than B2C sales cycle. So, you have to pay attention to the time period when you plan a sales or marketing strategy. One great way to boost your B2B revenue is that your sales team should take care of the leads all the time without any break. The sales cycle time must be taken into consideration seriously because you don’t want to lose the high conversion rate month after month.

7. Don’t push but motivate your sales reps to compete

It is obvious that the sales team plays a key role in getting more B2B sales for your company. If you push them too hard just to sell as many products as they can, it might not be a very effective way to earn more money. Instead, you should create a positive competitive environment within the team in order to motivate them to achieve higher sales goals than they did before. For instance, you can offer some incentives such as monthly rewards to top performers. By doing so, sales reps are encouraged to be more ambitious; they will find their job more exciting which increase productivity at work.

You can utilize technology like a tool or an online platform where all the sales team members can participate in. This platform can help the sales reps track their work, know which task that hasn’t been finished, or even check their teammates’ tasks and performance during the day, week or month. By comparing themselves to other team members, they will stay motivated and try to develop their skills to get more leads and make more successful deals. As a result, your B2B sales will steadily grow in the long term.

Conclusion

If you are struggling to boost your B2B sales, there are many great solutions out there to help you with the problem, so don’t worry. Perhaps those suggestions above can be pretty helpful to your business. A combination of traditional sales solutions and technology could be a wise choice for your company in this century. Also, remember that the more time you save, the more chances you will get to gain more customers for increasing sales.

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