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Why 67% of buyer’s online journey won’t kill B2B salesman?

B2B marketing, Is B2B saleman dead, Inbound marketing, Sirius Decisions

According to SiriusDecisions research, 67 percent of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally. This 67% statistic is often misconstrued.

High internet penetration, raining gadgets, power of research and the sea of information available online have slim down the gap between the customers and the products. Inbound Marketing is without the shadow of a doubt “the necessity”. Marketers have switched gears from fighting for space to fighting for attention. Creating the buyer personas, writing educational content, nurturing the leads and giving the reins in their hands to let them contact you when they are ready.

But does this really mean that 67 percent of the buyer’s journey doesn’t require or involve salesperson at all?

Do you really think it is a smart move for the sales team to sit idle, sip coffee and wait for the marketing qualified leads (MQL)?

What about those B2B customers who are still conservative and prefer to meet a salesman rather than filling up the lead gen form online?

What about meeting the customers and creating the need, knowing about their future projects, getting market intelligence and preparing the product teams for the next leap? And competitors, who are racing to gain market share, and always ready to play hardball with you.

Buyers who already have more information available to them have high expectations too. Therefore, the sales people need to transform the way they sell. There can’t be any static selling pitch like old days. It has to be tailored based on the customer requirements. Rather than pushing the products, the pitch should be more educational and informative. This builds trust among the customers. Therefore, there is no death of a B2B salesman. The new buyer's journey mandates a new avatar of B2B salesman- The Inbound Salesman.

And, Ladies & Gentlemen, this calls for the integration of sales & marketing teams. According to a study by the Aberdeen group, companies with strong marketing & sales alignment get 20% annual revenue growth. Companies with poor sales and marketing alignment have a 4% revenue decline.

Through account profiling, strategically targeting and pursuing the potential customers, sales team can support marketing team to create detailed buyer personas. This helps the marketing team to create the right content with the right context, for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

While the marketers’ responsibility is to provide the right MQL to the sales team and facilitate them with the early customer engagement, the sales team should also provide feedback on the leads.

Together these teams can bring out the best in market intelligence & personalized experiences for customers.
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