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Email is one of the most basic and reliable forms of online communication that has relentlessly maintained its importance in the business world. In recent news people have claimed that email is “Dying” merely because, in our minds, something that seems as old and rudimentary as email should be dying. In reality the effectiveness of email is still on top, especially within multi-channel engagement strategies. Although we acknowledge the importance of email, using it effectively continues to elude many of us.

“Can’t you just show me on my iPhone?”

We all know what buyers want, they want solutions that help them achieve their strategic objectives, and no nonsense. If you can come to a buyer, deliver a solution which provides measurable ROI or achieves objectives, and earn trust, you’ve got a winning proposition for closure.

The issue is that the sales process, one oriented in earning trust and developing relationships, is losing ground to technology that empowers the buyer and fragments the communications market. The art of being conversational and understanding the buyer is lost in the fog of unknown buyer preferences and difficult to reach buyer mediums.

The walking-brochure sales rep is seeing a dramatic, and highly undesirable, reestablishment, not by choice, but by virtue of a tipping balance of buyer-seller power in the conversational relationship.

New feature to the SFX environment empowers Sales with high quality, secure, digital sales calls on any device, any file format, no downloading or plugins, and through Skura’s predictive analytics engine. 

Easier to find; harder to reach,

There was once a time when the only way to reach someone was by letter, phone, and in person. Today, finding someone has never been easier, you could throw their name into Google and probably get 2 social media hits, contact details, personal characteristics, job competencies, their network, and etc.

But with all the ease of access, it seems harder than ever to actually reach someone. Today’s buyer is significantly more fragmented, operating on several social media platforms, likely using multiple mobile devices with potentially several operating systems.

Oh, and did we forget to mention? They’re also more empowered as buyers!  Your trusted sales process is turned inside-out with the abundance of online information, allowing buyers to meet you for the first time yet be half way into your typical funnel. How can you manage this?

Humans have an inborn desire to make connections with groups, whether it’s through a formalized social club or an informal interest forum. Psychologists find that group members hold a blind loyalty to their associates. People impulsively place value on the thoughts and opinions of affiliates and blindly ignore the thoughts of others. Psychologists label this phenomenon of illogical preference as “ingroup bias.”

Originally Posted in FierceCMO: http://www.fiercecmo.com/story/top-5-b2b-marketing-predictions-2015/2014-12-16

How do you have a meaningful one-on-one conversation with customers engaging on a digital sales aid?

There is an old saying - ‘The fortune is in the follow-up.” Sales statistics from the National Sales Executive Association showed that: 48% of sales reps never follow up with a prospect, 25% make a second contact and stop, 12% only make three contacts and stop and only 10% of sales reps make more than three contacts. But, 80% of won business happens on the 5^th – 12^th conversation.  For Best-in-Class performers, registering their name into the subconscious of customers means never underestimating the power of the follow-up. 

Multi-channel engagement has opened up avenues for sales reps like never before. In an effort to increase the engagement process, world class sales reps have found that effective campaigns, emails, social media and Web portals have enabled sales reps to increase win rates in the follow-up stages. In an effort to target customers using the right messages, world class sales and marketing teams are creating the kind of content marketing strategies that work to enable sales reps post-sales call.  

We know the old adage, "The customer is always right" - but we also know that it isn't always true. One thing we do know for sure is that in order to close the deal with customers, we have to be engaging.