At Scaura it is our mission to provide you with the tools and insights to hit your sales targets. And more importantly, build better relationships that ensure long term success for your clients and customers. Today we aim our sights at 5 key sales enablement trends for 2022 that help you raise the bar.
1. Hybrid selling
Hybrid selling is a concept well known in a B2C context. You hear about a product or service, engage with a social ad, leave your email in a lead magnet, and eventually interact with a sales rep and move to purchase. Yes, this is a slightly simplified process, but is mainly to illustrate that hybrid selling takes place all around us.
So why is it included in this list of sales enablement trends for 2022?
Allow us to explain.
In the mid-, post-pandemic world that we live in, online selling becomes vital to the success of your organisation. Intricate online marketing funnels may help you land leads, but eventually it takes trust in a brand that moves people to purchase. That human connection is where the magic happens.
Especially in B2B dynamics.
Trust is timeless.
Tech support through marketing funnels, CRM, and analytic tools help you identify, attract and analyse. And that’s when your opportunity comes to go from good to great.
A strong Hybrid Selling strategy pinpoints potential clients with an omnichannel approach. Mapping out the touchpoints of the customer journey. Making clear distinctions of when online tools are used and when a personal approach comes into place. Needless to say, this offline-online hybrid dynamic can be interchanged. As long as it makes sense in the eye of the customer.
Sales enablement software like ours at Scaura, assists your sales teams to get personal in a fun and fresh way, fully aligned with the data from the previous stages of your sales funnel.
And that’s what you really need for a successful Hybrid Selling strategy: enable your sales reps to become personal, natural, organic in addressing your customers needs.
2. Employee Advocacy
Let’s play a numbers game. Did you know that 89% of decision-makers say thought leadership has enhanced their perceptions of an organization?¹
In other words, you’d do well to start speaking more about your expertise. And allowing your employees and teams to share their views on your industry or service-related topics.
This will increase your brand’s perception.
After all – people want to know that your organisation can help them, but also how. This ‘how’ part is largely addressed indirectly by showcasing your company’s and employee skill set.
Employee Advocacy is far from reaching maturity and continues to make strides in 2022 as we see more employers opening up to remote working and working from home policies.
Because the pandemic has also increased our time spent on social media platforms.
Companies have taken notice and have upped their social media marketing budgets. Social media spending has increased from 13.3 % in February 2020 to 23.2 % in June 2020 —a 74% lift over just a five month period.²
What this tells you is that it pays to empower your employees to speak about their skills, your organisation, or your industry. Show the world that you can walk the talk.
A note of caution. Make sure you have a clear social media policy for your teams. This creates clarity and supports your employees to share with confidence. And your PR team knows that the content out there will really support your brand.
- https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/b2b-thought-leadership-research
- https://www.hootsuite.com/en-gb/resources/digital-trends
3. Personalization
The time of throwing generic value propositions, social posts, and emails at the wall – and seeing what sticks – is over.
The time to get personal is now.
75% of buyers expect companies to predict their needs and make relevant suggestions before contact. So it is vital that you understand the persona you’re targeting but also their specific needs. Personalized messages help enhance the customer experience for your prospect.
Take a hard look at your CRM system. Is it good enough? Does it bring data from various silos of your business? Does it integrate information from sales, marketing, customer service, and social media?
In which step of the buying journey does your CRM do the heavy lifting?
For instance, with Scaura’s sales enablement software you are able to customize pitch decks and content in a branded environment with analytic trackers. Ensuring you have real time insight on which of your documents create interest among your prospects. How often your decks are shared within the company, and what their open rate is.
That in turn allows you to directly address the needs of your prospect instead of having to guess what part of your business delights them most..
4. Enrich your storytelling with video and visuals
Cisco’s Visual Networking Index forecasts that by 2022, videos will account for 82% of all internet traffic.³
If you are still unsure whether to use video and storytelling to attract, sell to, or retain prospects, look at that number again. 82%.
Think about. The time it took for this blog to be written is probably three times as long as it would take to share all this in a video format.
Then again, it’s good to have things in writing for easier reference. But back to this sales enablement trend of video, visual, and storytelling.
Humans are wired to share and create stories. It’s how we pass information and are able to retain it more easily.
So when it comes to sharing content about the services and products you offer, you’d want your prospects to be excited. For them to tell others about it, to remember for later reference, or to act on it.
Bring in the power of visualization and story.
5. Sales enablement software
So you have a Hybrid Selling strategy in place – check.
You’ve asked employees to share their expertise – check.
You’ve personalized sales funnels so your prospects are truly seen and cared for – check.
You have visually stunning material that showcases what you have to offer – check.
This is the moment to step up and empower your sales reps.
Send them on the road prepared. And we don’t mean a laptop full of outdated documents and incoherent presentations.
Send them on the road with confidence. With a feeling that they can address all your prospect’s questions, hesitations, and needs. That they can actually do their job. Which is to build a relationship and bridge the gap of supply and demand.
Here’s an interesting set of statistics:
Consumers say sales representatives can improve their experience by listening to their needs (69%), by providing relevant information about their products (61%) and providing options beyond their initial offers (49%). – HubSpot, 2020
This is where you should know about Scaura.
Scaura is a sales enablement software. It offers you highly aesthetic and dynamic presentation possibilities designed specifically to make it easy to switch between content items.
Your marketing and finance teams can upload or update the latest documents into Scaura. And your sales rep automatically has access to them, wherever they are and whatever device they prefer to use. They can pivot on the fly and pull up new documents, change presentations, all whilst remaining in one branded, professionally looking environment.
So let’s roll it back to those statistics.
Prospects want your sales representative to listen to them. Not having to scroll through endless scattered documents, or finding that latest presentation sheet – Check.
They want you to provide relevant information. Wait. You wanted to see the design specs? Let me pull those up for you in one second. Or did you mean the financials? Here you go.
And lastly, let’s say the conversation turns, a different product or service comes up. Your prospect shows interest. Instead of having to say that you don’t have the updated information, you can bring all that information forward with the click of a button.
With Scaura you can truly address all the needs of your prospects. They gain trust and clarity, you win their business.
For a high level recap of Scaura, take a look at our 30-sec video. (Okay, truthfully it tops out at 37 seconds). Or leapfrog into 2022 and request your online demo here.
