The Seven Trends to Know About B2B Digital First Sales

The Seven Trends to Know About B2B Digital First Sales

by | Aug 17, 2022

The Digital First Buyer is Altering What’s Required for Successful Sales and Marketing Operations 

The world of sales and marketing is transforming at an unprecedented rate. This change is being driven the B2B Buyer’s desire for a Digital First sales process. This article will discuss the seven things every business owner should know about Digital First Sales to help their business thrive.

 

This shift in B2B Buyer’s desires has caused businesses of all shapes and sizes to rethink how to sell more effectively. And the Fortune 500 moved to meet the Buyer’s desires first. To address this new set of expectations, Enterprise companies took responsibility for pre-sales education away from the traditional role/responsibility of the sales development rep and passed that accountability to the marketing operations team.

This change is so rapid, that according to a recent Adobe research project, 82% of marketing professionals overwhelming agree that marketing has changed more in the past two years than in the past 50.  And 89% to 92% of these same marketers agree on three other facts as they take on these new pre-sales education responsibilities:

  • You need to focus on digital education first
  • Marketing operations needs to educate Buyers much deeper in their buying process
  • Marketers will need to keep learning on the job as new trends and patterns emerge

Smart Decisions Require Understanding the Modern B2B Buyers’ New Behaviors 

In this current environment, it’s difficult enough for even the most skilled marketers to keep up with all these changes. As a result, business owners and sales professionals are at even greater disadvantage.  Most sales professionals are confused and struggle how to most effectively fill their sales funnel with well-educated Buyers in the short term while making critical long term strategic marketing and sales operations decisions that will allow them to thrive in the long term. 

Fortunately, for today’s small and mid-sized businesses owners, we now finally have a great deal of information about what these new Buyers want from Sellers, expect from Sellers and how these Buyer’s behave when their needs are met. 

And – after launching over 150 successful sales and marketing automation implementations and sales and marketing ops teams – there are two things we know about business owners and entrepreneurs.

  1. First – once business owners understand the needs of their Buyers, they know how to meet the needs of their Buyer.
  2. Second – once business owners are armed with the right information and insights, most can make smarter growth decisions quickly and can prioritize their budgets intelligently.

With both of these facts in mind, we wanted to share the most recent information on how the Digital First Transformation has permanently altered Buyer behavior. And why the Modern Buyer prefer

 

B2B Digital First Sales Trends

One – Most Buyers Start Their Digital Education Months or Years Before They Are Ready to Buy

First, most Buyers are not ready to buy when they first start their digital education. Initially, most Buyers are just trying to figure out how to solve a problem. According to the most recent research by Aberdeen Research, less than 2% of initial email opens are close to being ready to buy. And even more surprisingly, less than 20% of your pay per click or SEO leads are active Buyers.  

On the negative side, this means ad hoc lead gen campaigns, awareness campaigns and appointment setting campaigns have lost a great deal of their effectiveness and impact.

But the positive fact is that about 80% of all these early-stage leads, we call them “Marketing Qualified Leads” (MQLs) will spend money within 3 to 18 months. So once a lead engages with you, even if they are not ready to buy immediately, you will have a short list of Buyers:

  • That you know will be spending money within the next 3 month to 18 months
  • That expect and want you to educate and nurture them for an extended period of time

You know these future Buyers are receptive to your thought leadership. You know that some will welcome your support as you help them move systematically through their buying process.

 

Two – Buyers Don’t Really Want to Talk to Sales Reps Until They Are Digitally Educated (And Ready to Shortlist)

According to Forrester, your typical Buyer now consumes 7-15 pieces of digital content prior to engaging with a sales rep. And they do this with 3 to 5 different solution providers.  And as noted in the intro of this article:

  • 80% of Buyers want to delay dealing with Sales Reps until they have completed their initial research and are ready to short list for a decision. (Marketing Sherpa)
  • 62% will try and reach a decision without talking to sales rep, if possible. (Content Marketing Institute)
  • And in 2022 33% to 44% want to avoid a sales rep completely, if possible. (Merkle B2B Study)

This further impacts the long-term effectiveness of ad hoc lead gen campaigns and means nurturing your later stage funnel is now required for Digital First success.

 

Three – Buyers Rarely Short List Sellers Without Sustained Nurturing

As Gartner’s latest survey and chart above clearly details, “Content is King”.  This now applies to the entire sales funnel.  Success now requires Sellers to continue to market the entire funnel after the lead has been generated.  This means you need to use content marketing tactics through the pre-sales process because this pre-sales process is now often happening without the direct involvement of your Sales Development Rep. 

This nurturing process is no longer optional because according to the 2022 Demand Gen Report,  95% of Buyers short list a solution provider that “Provides them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process”.

If your content marketing campaigns don’t move beyond the appointment setting and lead gen stage, it will be exceedingly difficult to survive and you will have little chance to thrive in the near future.

 

Four – Buyers Overwhelming Prefer Video and the Trend is Accelerating Post Pandemic      

During the pandemic lock downs, with face-to-face meetings impossible to execute and with Buyers moving to home offices (and with direct lines typically going straight to voice mail), video adoption was an experience all B2B Buyers and Sellers shared during the pandemic.  

Zoom normalized video for all of us.  It also normalized video adoption for pre-sales education.  According to both Wistia and Vimeo, downloads jumped by 380% in 2020.  And if you thought this adoption would slow down exiting the pandemic, you would be wrong.  In the first quarter of 2022, video consumption increased by another 148%.  Video is growing because video works.

  • Video is more convenient for the Buyer – 64% of Buyers stated they prefer video because its more convenient for education. (Gartner)
  • Video drives better engagement – Video posts have the highest engagement in Social Media (AdWeek) and using video in the email subject line, boosts open rates by 19% and increases click through rates by 65%. (Pardot)
  • Video is preferred over text when exploring solutions – Given the choice between text and video, 75% of Buyers will choose video to learn more about a solution. (Hubspot)

And according Vidyard and Vimeo, this shift to video is going to continue to accelerate in 2022 and 2023.   

  • In 2022 80% of the Fortune 500 is moving towards internal vs. external production.
  • Video is being used later in the sales funnel, with the average video created coming in at 9 minutes and 48 seconds in length.
  • And the average company that has been using video as part of their nurturing process is planning to double to triple their use of video in 2023.

Five – Buyers Reward Sellers Committed to Digital First Lead Gen, Pre-Sales Education and Nurturing

B2B Buyers are already dramatically rewarding Sellers for a Digital First sales and nurturing process:

Sellers have more opportunities to do business – Businesses that implement a content workflow and use marketing automation to nurture prospects, experience a 451% increase in qualified leads in 9 to 18 months. (ANNUITAS Group)

Sellers win more business – 95% of Buyers chose a solution provider that “Provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process.” (DemandGen Report)

Sellers win more business more frequently – You are 2X as likely to win business over your competitor if you provide a substantive digital education experience for your prospects throughout their buying process. (McKinsey)

 

Six – Enterprise Companies are All In on Digital First

According to McKinsey’s survey, “The Future of Sales”, close to 9 in 10 enterprise companies confirmed that the new Digital First go-to-market sales practice was going to be a fixture of their business moving forward.  And 85% stated they were going to stay committed to this process throughout 2023 and beyond.

They are committed to this process because it works; i.e., it meets the desires of their Buyers. 

And they plan to accelerate the adoption of this Digital First process by their Buyers because they are planning on almost doubling their spend over the next 4 years. 

 

Seven – This Will All Lead to Pre-Sales Automation

The combination of B2B Buyers preference for Digital First pre-sales education over speaking with a sales rep, combined with the success of this process, and the investment being made by the Fortune 500 is why:

“Gartner’s Future of Sales research shows that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between Suppliers and Buyers will be automated and occur in digital channels”

 

Conclusion

Replacing your historical sale rep driven process and ad hoc lead gen tactics with a comprehensive content marketing strategy and nurturing process  is not an “if” decision – it’s a “when” decision.  The B2B Buyer and the Enterprise market are both driving towards Sales Automation and the cost savings that this shift will represent.

Many small businesses, young companies, mid-size companies, and even under-resourced sales and marketing groups are struggling to keep up with this Digital First transformation.  Many have an initial lead gen program in place, but that program is not producing the results it used to, or it’s not producing to expectations.

In many cases, SMBs struggle to craft a solid strategy deeper into the funnel, or they’re flying blind with a scattershot strategy.  They lack the bandwidth to make informed decisions around the right marketing and sales tech to leverage.  They lack the talent and resources to create quality content on a consistent basis, or they lack the time or can’t afford to assemble an experienced team of proven sales and marketing operation experts that are required to run a sales engagement engine consistently.

 

Gabriel Sales can help!  When you’re ready, we have developed Digital Demand Center™ , a turnkey solution designed specifically for SMBs that turns the Digital First Transformation into an opportunity for SMB Sellers to survive and thrive.

If you are still not convinced or feel like you would like a much deeper crash course on all challenges and tactics required for success, we invite you to check out our Educational Video Series on The Digital First Transformation.

Sales and Marketing Operations Stats B2B Business Owners Should Know

by | Aug 12, 2022

“Gartner’s Future of Sales” research shows that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will be automated and occur in digital channels

Introduction

What is required for successful sales has changed more in the last 3 years than the previous 50 years.  The modern B2B Buyer now expects you to provide content and support to help drive their pre-sales education deep into their Buyer’s Journey.

Here are 39 critical stats to help you understand why a content marketing process that includes Digital First Pre-Sales Education and sustained Lead Nurturing is critical for long term success.

Here Are the Key Sales and Marketing Operations Stats B2B Business Owners Should Know

Inside Sales Calls Statistics

  • In 2012 it took 7 attempted calls to reach a prospect. Today it takes 18 attempted calls to reach a prospect. (Call Hippo)
  • 44% of salespeople give up calling leads after 1 attempt. (CSO Insights)
  • Making 8 or more call attempts to scored leads can boost conversion rates by up to 70%. (Salesforce)
  • Only 33% of an inside sales rep’s time is spent actively selling. (CSO Insights)
  • Sales reps can spend up to 40% of their time looking for somebody to call. (Inside Sales Report)  
  • 74% of an inside sales reps pipeline comes from marketing efforts, and inside sales average dials are consistently down 20% year-over-year (Bridge Group Inc)

Insights and Action: Calling and connecting is hard. You need to help your Sales Reps call smarter and help them to make the most of the call when they do connect. If, on a regular basis, a company can help a sale rep prioritize who to call, and provide insights about what to call about, you are going to see an increase in conversions. Always track results and collect/aggregate data in your CRM.

Leads

  • 97% of visitors who come to your website for the first time aren’t ready to buy. (Marketo)
  • 78% of inbound leads requesting information on your company today will not purchase for at least 3 to 6 months – and 28% will take 12 or more months to buy. (Sirius Decisions)
  • 90% of buyers attend tradeshows to learn about new solutions. (Tradeshow Network)
  • 70% of your buyers prefer to learn about new solutions by email with introductory digital education. (Marketing Sherpa Survey)
  • 24% are open to first learning about a new solution in Social Media. (Content Marketing Institute)
  • 93% of B2B companies say content marketing generates more leads than any other traditional marketing strategies. (CSO Insights)
  • Targeting users with content relevant to their problem yields 73% higher conversion rates. (Gartner)

Insights and Action: Generating the initial lead and building awareness is still the first step in the process, and you can and should consider using multiple channels. Your initial content should focus on highlighting statistics, challenges, pains and problems. But lead generation is only the first step in the process.

 

B2B Buyers Behaviors and Desires Have Changed

 

  • According to Forrester Research, 74% of business buyers conduct more than half of their research and solution education online before engaging with a sales rep.
  • Your typical buyer consumes 6-12 pieces of content prior to engaging with a sales rep. (Forrester)
  • 80% of Buyers want to delay dealing with Sales Reps until they have completed initial research and are ready to shortlist for a decision – moving from consideration to preference stage. (Marketing Sherpa)
  • 62% of buyers say they try to make a business decision based on online content alone. (Content Marketing Institute)
  • In a typical firm with 100-500 employees, an average of 7 people are involved in most buying decisions. (Gartner)
  • B2B buyers are 57%-70% through buying research before agreeing to meet with sales. (Forrester)
  • 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on purchasing decision. (Content Marketing Institute)
  • 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally. (Sirius Decisions)
  • 80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information from a series of videos and articles versus articles. (Forrester)

 

Insights and Action: Lead nurturing and content marketing is no longer optional. Buyers now required sustained content marketing and nurturing to support their entire pre-sales Buyer’s Journey.  

 

Video

Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of Buyers would rather use video to learn about a product or service. (Hubspot)

  • Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19%, click-through rates by 65%, and reduces unsubscribes by 26% (Syndacast). Video users have 27% higher click-through rates and 34% higher web conversion rates. (Pardot)
  • Video downloads increased 380% in 2021. (Wistia)
  • Video downloads continued to increase by 180% the first quarter of 2022. (Vidyard)
  • Webinar attendance increased by 330% in 2020. And 20% to 40% of first-time registrants (not even attendees) convert into opportunity within one year. (On24)
  • 91% of buyers believe that the pandemic made video even more important for understanding the specific value of a brand, product and/or service. (McKinsey)
  • 81% of the videos created by companies under 200 employees were user-generated. (Vidyard)
  • 54% of viewers watch a video all the way to the end. And the average length of videos increased to 9:48 seconds in 2021. (Vidyard)
  • Technology, Consulting and Professional Services Companies create the most videos for both awareness and nurturing. (Vidyard)

Insights and Action: Video has emerged as the most powerful type of content for buyers awareness and education. Long term success requires a commitment to video to support your entire pre-sales education process.

 

Lead Nurturing

  • Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% to 40% increase in calls to connect ratios versus non-nurtured leads. (DemandGen Report)
  • 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
  • Companies excelling at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales opportunities at 33% lower cost. (Source: Forrester Research)
  • Businesses using marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified opportunities. (Gartner)
  • 95% of buyers short list a solution provider that “Provided them with ample content to help navigate through each stage of the buying process”. (DemandGen Report)
  • You are 2X as likely to win business over your competitor if you provide a substantive digital education experience for your prospects throughout their buying process. (McKinsey)
  • 79% of most successful companies have been using marketing automation for 2 or more years before they see maximum results. (Forrester)

Insights and Action: Lead nurturing is now a requirement. Sellers that implement lead nurturing solutions win more business, more frequently over competitors that don’t. Consider allocating Sales Development Rep budget to Lead Nurturing as soon as possible

 

Conclusion

Replacing your historical rep driven process and Ad Hoc lead gen tactics with a lead nurturing process is not an “if”, but a “when” decision. The B2B Buyer now rewards sellers for this process.

Many small businesses, young companies, mid-size companies, and even under resourced sales and marketing groups are struggling to keep up with this digital first transformation. Many have an initial lead gen program in place, but that program is not producing the results it used to, or it’s not producing to expectations. In many cases, they struggle to craft a solid lead engagement strategy deeper into the funnel, they’re flying blind with a scattershot strategy or they are completely reliant on inbound leads. They lack:

  • The bandwidth to make informed decisions around the right marketing and sales tech to leverage.
  • The talent and resources to create quality content on a consistent basis. or
  • The time or can’t afford to assemble the experienced team,

What they need is a proven sales and marketing operation expert to run a sales engagement engine consistently.

About Gabriel Sales and Digital Demand Center™ 

Gabriel Sales’ can help. When you’re ready we have developed Digital Demand Center™ a turnkey solution designed specifically for SMBs that turns the Digital First Transformation into an opportunity for SMB sellers to survive and thrive.

If your still not convinced or feel like you would like a much deeper crash course on all challenges and tactics required for success, we invite you to check out our Educational Video Series on The Digital First Transformation and Small and Medium Sized Businesses. 

 

Video Trends for B2B Sales and Marketing Operations

Video Trends for B2B Sales and Marketing Operations

by | Aug 4, 2022

Video Trends for B2B sales and marketing operations are a critical strategic touch point for most business owners. And it is common knowledge for most B2B sales and marketing operation teams, that exiting the pandemic, video was one of the breakout tools of the Digital First Transformation.  

But what are the latest trends SMB business owners need to be aware of right now?  What are the trends your Sales and Marketing Operations team need to be aware of?  And what should you be thinking about as you craft your short and long-term sales strategies for the coming quarters and years?

 

 

Buyers Continue to Watch More Video

 

If you thought the pandemic was going to be the high point of video, you would be wrong.  Buyers continue to engage with video at an increased rate.

 

Video Still Drives the Most Initial Engagement

  • Using the word video in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19%. (Syndacast)
  • Video offers increase click-through rates by 65%, and reduces unsubscribes by 26%. (Syndacast)
  • Video users have 27% higher click-through rates and 34% higher web conversion rates. (Pardot)

Video continues to be one of the most productive ways to improve the performance of your email marketing and nurturing campaigns.

 

Video Doubles the Time Spent on Your Website

  • The average time spent on pages with video is 6 minutes, the average time spent on pages without video is 2.4 minutes.

If you invest time and money driving traffic to your website, you lose over 50% real engagement by not offering access to video on as many pages as possible.

 

Buyers Prefer “Video” Education over “Text” Articles When Learning About a Solution

  • Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service. (Net-Results)

As mentioned above, Buyers are continuing to increase video consumption and some of it has to do with the preference for video over text.

 

Video is Preferred When Nurturing Buyers and for Pre-Sales Education

  • 80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information from a series of videos and articles versus just articles. (Forester)
  • 91% of Buyers believe that the pandemic made video even more important for understanding the specific value of a brand, product and/or service. (McKinsey)

Buyers continue to increase their use of video as part of their pre-sales education.

 

Buyers Are Watching Longer Videos and They Are Watching More of the Video

According to Vidyard and Syndacast, when videos are less than one minute, most Buyers watch 68% of the video.  But now, even when normalizing for videos between 30 seconds to 1 hour: 

  • 54% of viewers now watch a video all the way to the end. (That’s up from 45% in 2020.)
  • The average length of videos increased to 9:48 seconds in 2021. (That’s up from 4:50 seconds in 2022. )

Buyers are becoming conditioned to videos as part of their Buyer’s Journey. Sellers can now break up longer presentations and use video to replace many of the presentations that were historically done during one-to-one meetings as part of the pre-sales education process.

 

User Generated Video is Now “In”

  • 80% of all videos created in 2021 were user-generated videos, versus just 60% in 2020. (Vidyard)
  • Two-thirds of user-generated videos were either screen recordings (capturing just what’s on-screen) or “hybrid” videos (which include a webcam feed in the corner of the screen recording to show the presenter’s face at the same time). (Vidyard)
  • 81% of the videos created by companies under 200 employees were user-generated. For companies over 600 employees, 75% of all videos were user-generated. (Vidyard)
  • Large and medium companies moved away from external video creation, focusing instead on leveraging a combination of internal and external resources. (Vidyard)

User- generated video has a few distinct advantages: It’s quicker to create, it’s cheaper, and it shows the relatable humanity of the person behind the screen.   This is great news for the small business owner and sales and marketing operations team because it gives them parity and makes it easier for them to compete with larger competitors.

 

B2B Companies That Need to Demonstrate “Thought Leadership” or “Demo” Product Create the Most Videos

  • Technology Companies, Consulting and Professional Services Companies create the most videos for both awareness and nurturing. (Vidyard)
  • These same B2B Sellers increased their average video production in 2021 by 334% compared to 2020. (Wisita)

Now that user-generated videos have reached mainstream adoption, combined with all the advantages of video for increased engagement and pre-sales education, B2B sales competitors with more complex sales cycles are bullish on the value of video to make their Buyer’s Journey as frictionless as possible.

 

Buyers Convert to Sales Ready Leads After Watching Three or More Videos

  • 80% of Buyers that convert to Sales Ready Leads have watched 3 or more videos. (Patel Industries)

Pushing the play button is an “active” action vs. the “passive” act of clicking through ad offers and scrolling through a web page.  Buyers that are interested in considering your solution will typically engage in three or more active acts.   This makes video one of the most effective ways to prioritize  potential opportunities for your sales team.

 

Conclusion

Successful Sales and Marketing Operations, especially for Pre-Sales Education, now requires leveraging video at every stage of your sales funnel.

This means you need to strongly consider leveraging video for your awareness and pre-sales education process to replace your historical rep driven process The B2B Buyer now expects you to leverage video to help them learn about your solution and the Buyer rewards the Seller for this process.

When you are ready to get started  integrating video Gabriel Sales can help.  Video is critical feature of Digital Demand Center  our turnkey solution designed specifically for SMBs that turns the Digital First Buyers into Sales Ready Leads.

Schedule Time Directly with a Video Marketing and Digital Demand Center™ Product Specialist

If you are new to video marketing and the Digital First Transformation or feel like you would like a much deeper crash course on all challenges and tactics required for success, we invite you to check out our Educational Video Series on The Digital First Transformation and Small and Medium Sized Businesses.