Evolved Selling: Optimizing Sales Enablement In The Age Of Digitalization 

Research by McKinsey found more than 75% of buyers and sellers said they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions. That's a remarkable shift, but one that makes sense in the context of recent events. In fact, it's far from solely a 2020 phenomenon. As sales leaders felt empowered by the new dynamics of virtual selling in their workforces, they’ve embraced the shift to digital and remote engagement.

However, to remain relevant in a rapidly-shifting digital economy while maintaining critical business continuity, the sales and marketing leaders of tomorrow must realize that demand from their target accounts may shift and reprioritize accordingly.

Intent data can provide insights that translate to highly-personalized interactions, which is vital to sales in a digital world. Sales teams need to execute on those insights quickly to create the personalized experience needed to build long-lasting business relationships in today's digital-first world. To remain relevant and stabilize revenue, B2B sales and marketing leaders should reinvent their approach to sales by focusing on three key areas:

Continuously Nurture Real-Time Customer Visibility

The digital sales cycle has many advantages over the previous way of doing business — it’s always-on and can scale rapidly to meet demand. AI-powered tools can deepen sales integration to nurture opportunities at scale and build more personalized experiences and content that reaches customers in real-time. Ongoing interactions and intent data can further refine AI models and ensure they are adapting to evolving trends as they happen.

Employing Integrated Data Intelligence

Putting the right data-driven tools in sales leaders’ hands can help them capture a single view of their customers to act quickly and effectively on crucial opportunities. At the same time, these innovations enable sales and marketing teams to collaborate seamlessly together and ultimately win. Just as the sales cycle has become digital, so too have sales teams. 

In order to provide the best engagement with prospects and customers, sales teams should rely on collaborative dashboards and integrations to ensure they have the latest information about a prospect, their engagement and where they are in the buying process. Sales departments who may be spending less money on travel, conferences and tradeshows should invest in technology solutions that will help them collaborate seamlessly across time zones. 

Focus On The Highest-Value Probability Opportunities & Activities

With an even greater deluge of data, sales teams need to focus their efforts on accounts that are most likely to buy or promise the greatest return. Sales teams need to look at new and existing customers to ensure they are maximizing their cross-selling, upselling and customer retention strategies. 

The most innovative sales and marketing teams are working together to focus on understanding their top customers’ needs to create tailored product bundles. Be sure to take things a step further and revisit your existing channels to understand how you can shift targeted customers to a direct model. Throughout 2021 and beyond, it's as much about recomposing the reality of target accounts as it is about prioritizing the B2B digital experience.

In her role as SVP of Americas, Enterprise Sales, Devon Wellbrock is responsible for managing many of MRP’s key client relationships. She has managed campaigns in the U.S., EMEA and Latin America. Devon works one-on-one with clients to help them run effective, results-driven campaigns. She is skilled in creating and executing marketing plans, along with managing an internal team of client facing resources. In her spare time Devon is an avid cyclist. She graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia.