Practical Marketing: How to shorten the B2B sales cycle and close more of your pipeline

Salesforce data suggests that the average B2B deal takes 102 days to close. That will be a frustrating enough wait for many businesses, but there are teams in other industries who would love it if their sales cycle were three months or so. In those cases, they are used to deals taking six, 12, or even 24 months to close. Aside from the stress that can cause, it puts a lot of pressure on the business to generate a large quantity of high-quality leads.

So, can you make that sales cycle shorter?

Obviously, there are limits to how short a B2B sales cycle can be with a new customer. There are big investments at stake, and probably multiple decision makers to close, but you can reduce it.

Here is how marketing can streamline your prospects’ buying decisions and shorten the time it takes to win new business.

B2B Marketing for every stage of the buying decision

You can accelerate a positive outcome by applying two concepts:

1. Sales and marketing are not separate activities

2. A B2B deal is a series of smaller sales

Sales and marketing are not separate activities

On that first point, any business, new or old, big or small, can fall into the trap of treating marketing as the activity that gets the lead, and sales as the activity that closes the lead. That is a dramatic oversimplification, it is damaging to salespeople and marketers, and it delays the close of the deal.

Yes, lead generation is one outcome of marketing, and a salesperson willprobably be the one tosteer the deal towards a contract, but the order of eventsis far from predetermine. There isn’t a moment when the baton gets passed between departments. At least, there shouldn’t be.

Marketing might generate a lead and need a salesperson to take that lead and run with it. The again, a salesperson might find their own lead, by research or my networking, and need marketing to help nurture the interest that they discovered.

A B2B deal is a series of smaller sales

You need to close a deal many times before your prospect puts pen to paper (or perhaps putsmouse to DocuSign).

47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before talking a member of the sales team, and 94% research online before they make a final purchase. According to Gartner, buying involvesdecision-makers dividing their time like so:

• 27% independent online research
• 18% independent offline research
• 22% meeting with fellow decision-makers
• 17% meeting with potential suppliers
• 16% other

Well targeted, valuable content marketing can make each of those stages quicker and more positive. Thought leadership serves the dual purpose of offering the answers that the researching decision-maker is looking for, and reassuring them that you are the experts who can solve their problems.

Make the prospect trust and value you, and you can ‘close’ the prospect on the current stage of their decision process, and move them faster and more enthusiastically to the next one.

Marketing for different B2B decision-makers

The bigger the target business, the more decision-makers are likely to be involved in a purchase. If you are selling to a business with 100-500 employees, then you can expect around sevenvoices influencing or making the decision.

The longer it takes to close each of those individuals, the longer the deal will take. The solutionsis to make sure you know:

• What type of decision-makers there are in your typical target business
• What is frustrating those people in their role
• What they like to read, hear, or watch when they are researching
• What are they being judged or targeted on?
• How can you help them realise that you can make them look good?

What motivates a CFO will be radically different from what motivates a Sales Director or a COO, and they will all have different assumptions, priorities, and preferred sources of knowledge.

If you can cater to them all, then you can look forward to faster and more positive outcomes.

B2B Marketing that you can count on to close more deals

To shorten the sales cycle, build a steady or growing pipeline, and close more of the leads that you generate, you need a marketing strategy that joins up with sales, starts with ‘why’,keeps its eyes on the purpose, and speaks in a language that your prospects understand.

You need…

• Content that cuts through the noiseand communicates yourexpertise
• Digital marketing that gets your brand in front of the right people at the right time
• Design that stands out from the crowd
• Social media that starts conversations and builds communities

Give us a call on 020 3941 0305 or get in touch on jenny.knighting@nutcrackeragency.com, to talk about marketing that will grow your business.