How to effectively organize your proactive B2B business development
In proactive B2B business development, we are guided by strategic thinking through the entire process: target definition, companies researches that meet the selection criteria, choosing the right communication tool (phone, LinkedIn, email), identifying the decision-maker, approaching them, getting their attention and engaging them.
As a first contact we prioritize telemarketing and invitations on LinkedIn, effective ways to explore new markets and get in touch with decision makers through a quality approach.
But before you start telemarketing, you need to think strategically about your business development.
To develop your business development strategy properly, you need to put in place 4 essential steps:
Establish a business development plan
It is essential to establish your sales strategy and put it into an action plan. This plan will identify:
- The size of the potential market. What geographical area and segments are you targeting?
- Targets: Smart targets should be set.
- Identify the main competitors, market risks and competitive advantages of the business: It is normally advisable to develop a SWOT matrix (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to understand the factors that will influence the success of your business.
- Establish KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These performance indicators will allow you to establish whether or not you are successful and will be used to identify areas for improvement in your tactics.
- Identify a budget. Ask yourself how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer and still maintain a profitable profit margin throughout the year.
- Establish a communications mix that will identify what media will be used to reach targets and how they will be used to build a relationship with them.
Understand and analyze your market and potential customers:
When you are looking to make a sale, it is crucial to understand your target market and what they need. You can’t just cold call someone and hope that there will be a conversion opportunity – it won’t work! So, before you get on the phone or online, research who might want/need the product(s) we offer, so you know where to fit into their lives.
To be an effective salesperson, you need to understand your customer and adapt accordingly. The best way to do this is to identify their profiles (personas), understand what they usually buy in the shop or online platform for example; how much time these customers spend studying marketing campaigns before buying something; a specific e-commerce site with discounts during Black Friday etc., which allows us to optimize our campaign as well as save money while increasing the chances of winning business!
Invest in your website
Your website is the face of your business. It is a powerful tool that helps you convert prospects into customers by capturing their contact information and bringing them to an informed decision point within 24 hours! Aesthetics play a huge role in how visitors perceive what they see on our sites. So make sure yours has a sleek design and modern user interface that allows users to navigate easily while quickly finding what they need. It’s also important that your potential customers can find you easily on search engines and that your site is well referenced.
Maintain your customer relationships
B2B SMEs generate the majority of their annual revenue from repeat customers. A good business development plan develops strategies to strengthen relationships with existing customers and ensure that you not only stimulate but also seek out new markets for growth, focusing on those who are most likely to buy your product or service in order to build an engaged base that will become future loyal customers!
Companies now rely on online reviews to decide who they want to do business with. Studies show that people trust these reviews as much, if not more, than personal recommendations from friends and family! This means that it is important for businesses to monitor both positive and negative feedback so that they can react accordingly.
Finally, to establish your B2B business development, you need to plan well, listen carefully, and adjust regularly to the reality of the field. That’s why we prefer the first approach by phone and LinkedIn (because it helps to have exchanges and feedback), and we offer pilot projects that will help you to set up your proactive B2B business development.