It's no secret that B2B marketing efforts differ in some ways from B2C strategies. The main difference is that you're dealing with clients rather than customers. Both groups are consumers but they behave differently and they have different purchasing decisions.
In other words, you need a different approach for reaching out to either of these consumer groups. As an example, your marketing efforts towards customers revolve around triggering an emotional response for your products. On the other hand, marketing efforts focused on clients usually take longer and emotions don't fit in the context.
Instead, you convince clients that your company is reliable and that your services will meet their organizational needs. That's why sales are more involved in B2B marketing, especially incentives that will encourage clients to at least try your services out. With that in mind, here are a few ways you can use sales incentives to leverage your B2B marketing campaign.
Why sales incentives in the first place?
As mentioned before, sales are more omnipresent in B2B marketing efforts and campaigns. The main reason is that you want to sell your products or services to your clients while convincing them that they're actually opting for a good deal. In other words, clients need to see and understand both the benefits and the value of your products or services for their organization.
What's more, B2B marketing is generally more complex and oftentimes time-consuming. Your sales team and your marketing tream need to be closely aligned in order to close deals successfully. You may promote your product or services to clients but you need a lot of convincing to do before they actually decide to partner up with you.
For that purpose, sales incentives serve as a method of making things a lot faster. If you incentivize your potential clients the right way, they may make a decision faster and of course, in your favor. Even if you get declined, you'll get declined sooner, which means you won't have to waste money and resources on convincing that client no longer and you can take a step back to rethink your approach.
Provide a demo trial
One of the things that can be considered as a sales incentive is a demo trial for your products or services. One of the best ways to find out whether or not your clients will like or dislike your offers is to allow them to try it out for free. Demo trials can last anywhere between a week and a month depending on what you're offering. That trial period is quite enough for clients to decide if they'll make a purchase or not. Once clients have a taste of your products or services in action, they'll be able to understand them better and become more willing to buy if they like what they see.
However, to make this sales incentive as effective as possible, make sure you include all the premium features and support in the demo trial, in order to give clients a full product or service experience. You may not gain any profits from this but including this sales incentive in your B2B marketing campaign will certainly attract more clients who will at least be willing to give your offers a trial run.
Provide personalized offers
We’ve witnessed a tremendous rise in personalization in the past few years, from targeted ads and trigger-based marketing to personalized and dynamic content. Most people feel much better when you personalize your sales email templates when you reach out to them.
Even though you are selling your product or service to another company, don’t forget that there’s still a real human being on the other end. This person is a decision-maker who will ultimately decide whether or not to purchase your service, and they, just like anyone else, react positively to a personalized and highly targeted approach.
Instead of creating general offers and presenting them to everyone, create personalized offers that will be tailor-made for prospects who are most likely to convert. A comprehensive cold calling software with progressive auto dialing and lead routing can help you easily find and reach out to those who are the closest to the purchase. Personalization will help you give your hottest leads an offer they can’t resist and nudge them to finalize the sale.
Reward loyalty
Even B2B companies depend on positive reviews, referrals, and word-of-mouth recommendations. Every personal recommendation or a positive review by existing clients can be much more powerful than any of your other marketing efforts. Therefore, if you want to encourage more reviews and recommendations, you'll have to use a sales incentive to motivate your current clients. A good example of this is implementing a loyalty program. You don't have to overdo it too much.
Rewarding the loyalty of your clients is essential for maintaining their loyalty and retention but it can also be a great asset to your marketing campaigns. Together with client recommendations and your own marketing strategies you can promote your emphasis on loyalty and encourage even more clients to opt for your products or services.
Provide proper training to clients
Customer service and support are one of the most important factors for business success. If you want them to opt for your products or services you have to provide extended service and support as a sales incentive. You can start by creating an effective customer onboarding process and providing proper training to clients until they're firmly familiarized with your products or services. In this case, your clients mostly resemble what your approach would be towards B2C customers.
You must empower your clients and one of the best ways to achieve that is to empower them through proper knowledge. As a further extent of your support, provide clients with extended warranties and guarantees. This will not only encourage clients to make a purchase but it will further improve your relationship with them. By promoting your exceptional customer experience that is based on seamless customer service and support, you'll be able to attract more clients and encourage them to opt for your offers.
B2B marketing differs from B2C marketing. That's why you must leverage sales incentives in your marketing campaign, in order to boost your relevance and encourage clients to buy from you. With the right strategy in place, your sales incentives can be your main asset, as well as your main competitive advantage in the market.
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