They keep companies afloat and help them sustain long-term competitive positions, especially in a crowded market.
Ergo, if you want your organisation to succeed, you need to know how to win at sales. And that all comes down to your sales strategy plan.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started, there’s been a huge shift in sales strategies. The smooth-talking Del Boys of this world aren’t enough anymore, and both returning customers and prospective leads tend to naturally gravitate towards whoever stands out the most. So, how do you make sure your business is among the best at sales? We have put together our winning sales strategies for 2022, which help shine a light on what your organisation needs to do to succeed throughout the coming year.
1. Update your website
A business operating online (exclusively or not) needs a website that gets them noticed – and for all the right reasons. It takes users mere seconds to form an opinion about your website. And if yours has any subpar elements, which Google will consider in its rankings, then you probably shouldn’t expect stellar sales figures.
Improving your website will help create a better first impression, which can in turn generate more leads for you to convert into sales. Not sure where to begin? Check out our top 5 website best practices you should be following for success online.
2. Make your sales model hybrid or fully remote
Judging by HubSpot’s 2021 Sales Enablement Report, strategies that utilised hybrid or remote working proved the most successful. Almost two thirds (64%) of companies saw their revenue targets met or exceeded after transitioning to remote sales, while only half (50%) paid off for those that didn’t. Refreshing your sales model to incorporate hybrid or fully remote best practices can help streamline performance, while simultaneously ensuring you stay ahead of the business curve.
Salespeople working remotely or on a hybrid schedule can perform their day-to-day duties with greater effectiveness, providing the right tools are in place. If a scheduling link is included during the meeting organisation process, for example, it becomes much easier for prospects to find empty slots in reps’ calendars. This in turn helps cut down on the amount of emails and follow-ups needed to arrange in-person meetings.
3. Ensure your personas are up to date
Following the events of the pandemic, consumer behaviours have changed drastically. Things like travel restrictions, meeting bans, and mandatory work from home regulations signalled a rapid shift to more digital-focused ways of working and living, many of which buyers simply refuse to give up.
Reevaluating and realigning your buyer personas is essential in the post-COVID marketplace. Programs like Google Analytics and Facebook’s Audience Insights work to ensure your personas still meet the needs of your current target audience, while at the same time potentially expanding it. Don’t be discouraged if you need to update your personas to reflect your new 2022 sales strategy plan, or vice versa. There’s a lot of change happening in the marketing world right now, and it’s all in the name of figuring out how to win sales and influence customers for the better.
4. Start understanding and personalising for your customers
According to LinkedIn’s State of Sales Report 2021, buyers reported three key behaviours that kept them from completing a deal:
- Almost half (48%) said that their biggest bugbear was companies delivering misleading information about a product, its price, etc.
- Over two-fifths (44%) didn’t understand the company they were pitching to, and its needs.
- Nearly just as many (43%) didn’t understand their own product or service!
Personalising your sales strategies so that they appeal to potential leads is a good start. Conducting research that shows you understand your clients’ needs, along with data-driven insights into organisational improvement, will help make a stronger case as to why your company in particular should get their business.
5. Test new marketing tools
If your marketing software is out of date or inefficient, this could negatively impact sales. Because technology keeps evolving at a rapid pace, it’s hard to know which are the best platforms in the current digital market. Hence why testing new marketing tools is absolutely vital.
Various marketing tools exist that can be used to help streamline and optimise both advertising and sales efforts. CRM, CMS, marketing automation software, analytics and reporting software, and SEO software are just a few that you should consider incorporating into your sales strategy plan for 2022. Platforms like HubSpot go so far as to offer a fully integrated inbound marketing solution that works to consolidate your plans and maximise sales potential. They have packages to suit all manner of business needs, and you can even start using HubSpot for free, or simply request a demo that covers everything from content management to promotional services – including that all-important sales element.
6. Embrace social selling
As a concept, social selling has become more and more popular in recent years. Its principal ethos isn’t trying to sell your product right here, right now. No, social selling works much better if you establish – and then continuously develop – a rapport with your potential leads. This way, when they look for a product to buy or service to hire, yours will be the first business they put on their list.
Social selling is a must-have component to any serious 2022 sales strategy plan. The good news is, if you have a business platform anywhere on social media you’re already selling socially. Now you just need to make sure you’re in control of it. Have a discussion with your team about social sales strategies that could potentially benefit your business. Many companies are now selling socially as a rule, which means your customers may very well become theirs soon if you fail to put in the effort.
7. Don't pitch: solve!
In sales, high-pressure deadlines and target-driven schedules often prompt reps to pitch products to their customers on a continuous basis. This can be frustrating on both sides of the deal, and should be avoided at all costs.
Instead, try to view the entire sales process as an opportunity. You could provide help and solve problems, like how we did for Sparc. Treat your prospects like the human beings they are and attempt to find business solutions everyone can work with, in the short term or over time. And remember, no sales pitches while emailing potential leads or using other modes of communication to reach them – there's a time and a place for that but this isn’t it.
8. Remember your unique selling point (USP)
Every salesperson working for you should know your business’s unique selling point (USP). Being able to identify its assets, utilise them properly, and apply them to the needs of prospective clients is the backbone of any winning sales strategy.
Showcasing a value proposition of your company’s USP is, in many ways, the backbone of sales. Acquiring new business should form the bulk of your sales productivity target, and if you haven’t figured out how to succinctly and convincingly answer the question of what you can offer potential customers, then prepare to be very disappointed.
9. Utilise email marketing
Data from HubSpot in 2020 estimates that by 2024, the number of email users globally will have grown to around 4.48 billion. Consistent email marketing has long been a proven method of driving sales. Launching email-led campaigns could be just the push your business needs to really boost its sales.
A mailing list will get your email marketing journey off to a good start, and it would also be great if you could feature on ones that deliver to your target audience, too. Make sure you reach out to partner marketers, digital publications, and influential people on social media related to your business niche – you may find the results very promising indeed.
10. Create a conversational customer experience
Every customer wants to feel like they’re valued, and this is no truer than in sales. Given the rising popularity of AI technology, a new era of conversational customer experience is emerging – and your business must welcome it.
Of course, customer conversations and relationships are nothing new, and if you already have an established rapport, you’re in a unique position to offer them the very best solutions. But what about prospective customers? You should be applying that same methodology to them as well. Cold-calling can still work wonders, it’s true, but live chat and bots are gaining headway fast. Many buyers prefer these simplified yet still conversational means of communication, and you don’t want to risk your business being left behind.
Want to increase your company’s sales throughout 2022? For world-leading expertise within the digital market, contact us today.
