We have been fortunate to have lot of success in Vainu when it comes to sales prospecting, thanks to our own prospecting platform. Our B2B sales teams are able to identify the right prospects at the right time and significantly increase conversion rates.
Vainu’s key to growing so fast?
In marketing, we have always used a ”must have” tech stack that every aspiring unicorn should have at this level. As marketing and sales are driving towards shared goals, one might ask: How could we use our own data to drive marketing efforts?
Marketing today is about data and that is what we have. Also, we gather data in a structured way so we can identify micro-segments in B2B. What we mean by this is that we not only know what kind of prospects they are, but we can also predict what is most likely going to happen in those companies.
A mantra to live by: B2B is H2H, human to human.
While marketing automation tools are incredibly useful, it is always crucial to keep the human element intact. There is a mantra that B2B is H2H (human to human). That is why you need to treat marketing to businesses like marketing to humans. The more relevant you can be and the better you can talk about things that matter to your leads — the actual people in businesses who stand to benefit by using your product — the higher conversion rates you’ll have in B2B marketing.
And the more data you have about the companies in which your B2B leads work at, the better chance you have of connecting with them, building a relationship and really identifying their challenges and delivering solutions to those.
How rich data about prospects can help you in your marketing efforts:
- Marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales qualified lead (SQL). Ask your sales teams what do they prefer in an optimal prospect and make them commit those leads as a SQL. Use data to segment the inbound leads to further match these qualifications. A concrete example: If an inbound lead from company XYZ is a MQL, but if that same lead from company XYZ has had a CFO change recently and it fits into your ideal customer profile while using an old-fashioned tech stack, it becomes a SQL. For marketing, it means that more automation helps create an SQL that drives growth.
- Do you have a campaign in your marketing automation system? I bet you do. So, how about analyzing the outcome of the campaign and creating an ideal customer profile that you can use in calling lists, further campaigns, event invitations and so forth?
- Do you need to create a calling list of companies for your sales teams? Just like in B2C, it is simple to create optimized calling lists detailing which companies to call and why to call on them. Instead of contacting companies once every six months, why don’t you dynamically approach the most relevant companies with the pitch that is most relevant to just them? Be pointed and specific with your pitch — pinpoint their pain-point and deliver the message that your product or solution solves that challenge for them. Your pitch is going to be far more relevant — and you’re going to have a much stronger chance of moving the prospect forward in your sales funnel.
The future of B2B can be predicted by looking at where B2C was a few years ago.
Lot of things that are done in B2B marketing seem similar to B2C marketing activities — and they really are. The future of B2B is what B2C was a few years ago. When you have the data, it’s just a matter of extracting it and using it to your advantage in prospecting. It really becomes a matter of letting the data show you where to go.
