According to The State of Enterprise Sales Enablement 2019, 85 percent of sales and marketing leaders agree that buyers will dismiss a seller in the first interaction if they don’t receive tailored information. Companies are moving towards account-based selling to fill this gap by enhancing the buyer experience in a more effective and efficient manner.
Account-based selling is a B2B sales model that uses a hyper-personalized customer engagement strategy. Under this model, sales teams focus on a set of highly-targeted, high-value accounts with the goal to convert them to customers. To do so successfully requires talking to the right people, at the right time, with the right content and messaging.
With the rise of account-based selling, it’s important for any modern business to explore the benefits and understand what tools and resources are required to properly implement this model. Account-based selling can make a major difference for both the sellers and buyers involved in a sales cycle. But how?
Account-based sales has proven to focus sales and marketing teams, leading to stronger results.
Smarter selling to the modern buyer
As we have talked about on a prior blog, buyers are doing more of their own research than ever, requiring a shift towards a more personalized and consultative buyer-seller interaction. Seismic President and Co-Founder Ed Calnan refers to this as the Era of the Educated Buyer. This applies to account-based selling, by giving the buyer only the most valuable information. The buyer should receive a more tailored experience which offers reassurance that the company is capable of addressing their specific needs. ‘When an account-based selling tool is integrated with a sales enablement solution that provides predictive content capabilities, buyers will only be engaging with content that was served to them because it’s relevant. Being armed with the right content and knowledge makes it easier and quicker for prospects to gain internal approvals. This can be especially useful when one considers that there can be seven different decision makers involved in one deal.
Shortening sales cycles
With account-based selling, sellers can save time by focusing on qualified targets and highest-value accounts which allow for more coordinated cross-functional efforts and increased efficiency. According to Forrester Research, “Aligned organizations achieved an average of 32% annual revenue growth while less aligned companies reported an average 7% decline in revenue.” Account-based sales has proven to focus sales and marketing teams, leading to stronger results. By optimizing workflow and delivering personalized interactions, the seller is more effective at shortening the deal cycle.
Appealing to the results-driven marketer
Marketers can leverage data that shows which touch points and content are having an impact during the deal cycle, and then work with sellers to refine their approach into how they’re selling into selected accounts. This includes making necessary revisions to maximize the use of content and resources based on how much time a buyer spent reading a certain asset. Data and insights offer marketers a chance to adapt their strategies for optimal results and an opportunity to showcase the ROI to internal stakeholders.
Seismic sees a lot of promise in account-based selling and is excited to be joining the Outreach.io Galaxy as a partner, which will include a deep product integration between Seismic and Outreach. The integration will provide sellers an opportunity to deliver hyper-relevant content for every conversation, while arming marketing with the insights to understand what content is best performing with buyers. Visibility into how buyers are engaging with content empowers sellers to tailor their follow-up approach and engage in deeper conversations that accelerate the sales cycle.
The Seismic and Outreach partnership is primed to deliver on all the benefits of account-based sales. Together, Seismic and Outreach are enriching buyer conversations, streamlining sales execution, and offering actionable analytics.
Learn more about Seismic’s partnership with Outreach.
