Awesome Tips to Increase B2B Leads and Sales in 2022

It can be more complex to secure sales and leads for business to business (B2B) than for business to consumer (B2C). Now, you’re not dealing with individuals who might make impulsive decisions, or that can be easily swayed by strategies that appeal to them personally. You will have to convince a group of people that might not all agree on what’s best for them when selling to businesses.

Even so, a group of people is still susceptible to the same social psychology that affects all of us. You just need to use more sophisticated techniques that include additional factors.

The following article offers 12 tips on how to increase your B2B leads and sales based on different approaches, along with advice on how to implement them.

12 Amazing Tips to Increase B2B Leads and Sales

One common thread you’ll find through these tips is that perception greatly impacts B2B sales. Be it using case studies to show your results or leveraging the power of social media for the same reasons, you’ll find that one of the best ways to increase your B2B leads and sales is by giving people proof of your work or letting them do it for you.

Here is the full list of tips:

1.     Take Advantage of Case Studies

Selling to businesses is different from selling to consumers. The first difference is that multiple parties often make business decisions. To get a resounding yes from everyone, you must prove that your product or service adds value.

If a prospect is debating between two options, it can help tilt the balance in your favor. Case studies are an effective way to prove this. Typically, this type of content is used near the end of the buyer’s journey, during the consideration and early decision stages.

73% of buyers used case studies in their B2B purchasing decisions. Studies show that your product provides distinct value to your clients and that partnering with you would benefit both parties.

Because of this, if you have some successful cases you are proud of, don’t keep them in a folder on your laptop; instead, study them and offer them to your audience. 

Using a case study can help you use an outsider’s point of view in your favor, with 81 percent of people trusting friends or family over a business.

Even if you write it yourself, it’s about how one of your customers achieved a particular result and what they can expect when working with you.

B2B deals are more likely to close when social proof is present.

2.     Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams

Super Office experimented with aligning their sales and marketing teams, and their findings were stunning. When the sales and marketing teams worked together to achieve the same goals, they increased brand awareness, filled their pipeline with more prospects, and, most importantly, increased revenue by 24% in just two years. Wouldn’t it make sense for you to do the same for your teams?

A bad interaction with a sales representative can cause a potential deal to be derailed.

The consequences of someone ignoring or ignoring an email for weeks can quickly devastate your brand’s reputation and revenue targets.

How can you prevent this from happening? Train your team.

Customers buy from people they know, like, and trust. Your salespeople must learn how to build rapport and close sales with tools.

To ensure a successful quarter, include the following in your sales training:

• How to generate leads and guide them through the buyer’s journey.
• Tips for overcoming typical obstacles and communicating the results of your brand. Scripts to help people avoid awkward silences and sounding hesitant.

The better your sales crew is trained, the faster you will reach your sales targets. Your overall sales goals will be hampered if your marketing and sales teams are constantly at odds. However, year-over-year growth can increase by 32% when sales and marketing are aligned.

The following tips can help achieve alignment:

• Work together to create campaigns, content, and ideas. Both teams offer unique and equally useful perspectives on prospects.
• Lead scoring helps you identify the best leads, then prioritize them.
• Identify the exact point at which marketing leads to sales to avoid confusion.
• Establish a clear definition of what constitutes a sales qualified lead versus a qualified marketing lead. Both teams argue about the quality of their leads, and this is one of the most painful parts of their work.

3.     Don’t Ignore the Holidays

B2B revenue can be generated in abundance during the holiday season. If you employ the correct approach, you can take advantage of the consumers’ disposable income during these months.

Below are some ideas to get you started:

• Make a limited-time offer: Offer a new product, service, or holiday package. Informing your audience that it is only available during the holidays will create a sense of urgency.
• Offer free shipping or a discount: Take advantage of the mentality of free items to increase sales. Obtaining something for free is a powerful emotional trigger, referred to as the “zero price effect,” which is extremely difficult to resist.
• Use expiring bonuses: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the perfect time to take advantage of expiring bonuses. Remove one bonus a day to generate a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out).

4.     Create a List of Potential clients

Knowing who you want to target is the best way to increase B2B sales. Your game plan is based on knowing your target audience. You are not making progress without it; you only wish for it.

But who are your best potential clients? You can identify them by answering these questions:

• Are they large or small companies?
• What is the annual revenue of their business?
• Which niche do they serve?

The more specific you are here, the better your chance of increasing B2B sales.

After you have these answers, you can use tools like LinkedIn or Angellist to find companies that match your dream client description.

5.     Make Use of Paid Ads

Still not using paid advertisements? Today, with most of the world’s population owning a smartphone and more people online than ever, this is the ideal moment to mine the gold mine through services like Google AdWords.

By focusing on terms your target audience uses to find solutions to the problems you solve, you might improve B2B sales while you sleep.

Here are a few more reasons to register for Google AdWords:

• Pay-per-click advertisements generate 50% more conversions than organic ones and have a return on investment of 200%.
• Google advertisements can increase brand recognition by up to 80%.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, B2B paid advertising increased by 83%, with LinkedIn ads leading the pack. Similar results can be found on social media. Among paid distribution channels, social media was the second most effective among paid distribution channels, behind only SEM.

6.     Leverage the Power of Social Selling

This strategy is not intended to increase sales conversions but to establish a solid foundation of long-term business partnerships. Social media does not guarantee that every lead will make it through the sales pipeline.

By building a solid online presence for your B2B business, however, you will develop ongoing connections with your potential customers, which will enable you to engage in more vital conversations, share essential information, and raise the number of loyal customers. It is estimated that recurring customers spend 67% more and make more purchases than first-time clients.

Are you still not convinced? The data speaks for itself:

• 77% of people will choose a brand over a competition following a positive social media encounter.
• 54% of social media users research products across multiple platforms.
• 71% of people will purchase based on a recommendation on social media.

But what exactly is social selling? It’s the process of identifying and engaging potential clients online.

When you check into Instagram, respond to a DM, or share a LinkedIn article, you deliver value and do social selling. Rather than standard sales approaches, it is a gentler approach, focusing on long-term, true connections.

How can social selling be used?

• Talk about your transformation, not about features. You should emphasize the outcomes of working with you online when describing your product or service.
• Social proof influences online purchases, which should be presented with case studies and testimonials. You can use your results to demonstrate that you are the best to your audience and build a stronger know, like, and trust factor.
• Position your company as the industry authority by answering your prospects’ most pressing questions and guiding them through your marketing funnel.
• Focus instead on building relationships rather than developing content. Follow potential customers on social media platforms like LinkedIn and interact with their content.

7.     Work on Your Email Marketing Strategy

Marketing via email generates $44 for every $1 spent, a 4400% ROI, making it one of the most effective ways to reach out to prospects. Keep your existing clients informed about new features and upgrades in your business with emails (increasing customer retention).

This will also encourage new prospects to buy your products. It’s important to avoid having your emails go into the spam folder when using this channel, as this harms B2B sales conversions.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter crash almost every few years sending influencers, company owners, and users into a tailspin.

The experience is a grim reminder that programs you’ve spent hours creating could disappear at any time.

Thus, you must get your followers on a platform you can manage, such as email marketing. You will not only have constant access to your list (until someone unsubscribes), but you will also be profitable.

Is your subscriber list lacking? The following months can be used to expand one through email opt-ins such as:

• cheatsheets
• industry reports
• e-books
• checklists

8.     Don’t Neglect Cold Calling

Cold calling is still one of the best ways to convert leads if done effectively, despite popular assumptions. 57% of B2B C-suite and VP-level buyers have preferred cold calls over other channels.

So why does cold calling work? People are social beings, and cold calling is the only channel that provides a personalized, real-time connection between the salesperson and the prospect. Engaging prospects during a cold call will allow you to skyrocket your B2B sales.

However, there is a catch.

Cold calling is only effective when it is done correctly.

Bulk emailing everyone and anybody without a strategy will not produce any results.

What’s the reason?

Nobody enjoys listening to irrelevant pitches. You will earn points with the customer by identifying a problem you can solve and offering a personalized solution.

9.     Use More Video Content

Videos have become an integral part of the B2B sales process for numerous reasons: They are engaging and amusing, have a high ROI, clients prefer watching videos rather than reading about them, and increase a sale’s chances by 1.8 times.

This does not mean you must immediately launch a YouTube channel. You can include short video content in your blog or send short videos to your prospects’ emails. You can even start a webinar course if you are ready to share some of your business expertise.

The video marketing industry has exploded recently, but what are the secrets to its success?

After all, It’s faster to skim a few lines of a blog than to watch a 10-minute video.

Even though videos require a greater time investment, clients prefer them to text, and they offer numerous commercial advantages:

• 95% of viewers remember video messages.
• Video increases site traffic and page dwell time.
• Online customers are 1.8x more likely to convert after watching a sample video.
• 78.4% of marketers say video content increases revenue.
• The most influential platform when it comes to customer behavior is YouTube.

With TikTok on the rise, Instagram is fighting hard to gain market share.

The outcome? There is a high interaction rate for Instagram Reels, and the system favors them over photo posts. Instagram has declared itself a video-sharing platform rather than a photo-sharing app.

Incorporating videos into your content marketing strategy and using them to boost B2B sales cannot come at a better time. Consider creating a YouTube channel, a Reels strategy, or embedding videos on your website.

10.    Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Referrals

Word of mouth is the most influential factor in purchasing decisions, even more powerful than interactions with vendors or a company’s website. Due to timidity or lack of expertise, salespeople fail to ask for referrals from customers too often. That’s a huge mistake.

By generating referrals, you can enhance your B2B sales without drawing attention to yourself. Make it a habit to ask for referrals whenever you speak with a consumer.

Customer referrals are vital to every business. There’s no easier way to generate sales.

It is easier to receive a yes from a referral than a cold pitch, where you need to build trust first. Due to a recommendation from a friend, family member, or coworker, the customer already trusts your brand and is more willing to pay for your products.

That’s why influencer marketing is so popular online. Advertisers pay for a content creator’s endorsement and trust with their audience, which has more weight than a random ad in a newspaper.

What are some ways to increase referrals? Create a referral program.

Rewarding your most devoted supporters for doing the hard work for you is generating niche-specific leads that typically lead to sales is important.

11.    Train Your Team

Not everyone is born to be a salesperson. Many of you have probably received terrible sales calls and emails during your career. However, training can make anyone a great salesperson.

Your sales force must have the skills it needs to succeed since people still buy from people. Provide your sales force with the following:

• Tips for dealing with difficult customers
• Lead qualification and lead quality improvement strategies
• A script that salespeople can rely on in times of need

Providing your sales force with the appropriate training is the best way to ensure they are maximizing their sales efforts. You will be more successful if your sales force is better prepared, whether you sell to private clients or customers who make critical business decisions.

12.    Incorporate Chat in Your Sales Channels

Sales Chat is an excellent tool for lowering bounce rates and converting website visitors into warm leads who want to learn more about your products and services.

Whether visitors are exploring your site during the day or browsing your offerings at night, a chat service can ensure that there is always a person or bot ready to assist them.

Through a properly set up and implemented sales chat system, site visitors receive high-quality personalized content and information tailored to their wants, goals, and pain points. This will help your customers be more in tune with your business and prefer your services.

Conclusion

Your best bet is not to follow one strategy but rather to adopt a combination of techniques from the list above. Using chat in your sales channels can easily incorporate referrals into the sales process. And if you are aligning your sales and marketing team’s goals, that would be a great opportunity to train your team on lead-generating techniques further. You can adopt these strategies, or only a few, depending on what you feel works best for you or is easier to implement. Bear in mind that their effectiveness may vary depending on the specific niche of your business.

Frequently Asked Questions