I’ve recently witnessed some marketplace changes that I want to share with you. This past week our client teams have noticed that response rates and live conversations with B2B prospects have picked up considerably. Of course, I am hoping this trend continues. Are your sales teams finding the same?

Here are some takeaways from the past week for you to leverage for the coming week:

  1. Tactics Successfully Generating Sales Pipeline: Outbound Prospecting and Webinars –Current research from TOPO  shows that Outbound Prospecting and Webinars are the top current tactics generating pipeline (see chart below). Outbound Prospecting works—even during a global pandemic—how? Simple, when reps send customized messages over a variety of channels with consistent follow-up, they achieve more success. Ongoing messages can easily change based on a changing environment and high-performance reps adapt to stay current and connected to their contacts. Webinars are one of the best marketing tactics that are working right now as noted in the chart below. These online presentations offer organizations real thought leadership opportunities as they showcase their subject matter experts who can provide helpful, relevant information to their prospects. As most prospects work from home, webinars offer the chance to learn something new, solve common problems, and take a break from their working environment. Several digital tactics (e.g., advertising, content syndication) are not adding much pipeline due to the reduction in marketing budgets, and general digital content fatigue that is associated with those tactics.
  2. Preserve Revenues in B2B Markets as COVID-19 Spreads – Bain & Company published a report recently that explored the concept of a revenue “win room”. Taking a page from political campaigns, rather than a “war room”, commercial leaders are setting up a revenue “win room” where they can think the unthinkable, sharpen their sales focus and accelerate their sales cadence. A win room serves as a clearinghouse to absorb the analysis underway, add real-time intelligence from the field, rapidly deploy and reorient people to critical areas, and actively track the situation as it unfolds. In particular, they outline 5 Types of Sales Plays that B2B companies can run and test:
    I. Win Back
    ii. Renewal
    iii. Upsell
    iv. Cross-Sell
    v. New Customers

Some interesting ideas here that I think we can all use. And tell me if you do!

I hope this information is helpful! Please feel free to forward to any of your colleagues….stay safe and let me know if my team can assist you in any way. As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or ask how I can help.

Looking forward,
rick

Rick Endrulat
President
Virtual Causeway
(519) 886-1600 ext. 622