Leads acquired from outbound techniques typically have longer sales cycles than the average 102 days (Implisit Study) because of the time it takes to prime and convert leads. And if your product requires customization, you could have a longer sales cycle than expected. In such cases, you need to look at B2B Sales Acceleration without impacting your current lead generation process. 

Benefits of Sales Pipeline Acceleration:

 a. Clear communication between sales and marketing teams

With sales pipeline acceleration, your teams spend less time going through long-drawn processes that clog your pipeline. Instead, sales and marketing are better aligned to collaborate and get the best sales enablement assets out to the prospects so they can make quick decisions.

b. Increase in Revenue

With faster communication, your teams focus on high-priority tasks and qualified leads to optimize conversions. This enables higher closure rates and increased revenue. 

Take a cue from these industry proven tactics that can optimize leads and accelerate your sales pipeline.

1. Know Your B2B Customer’s Industry

B2B buyers have easy access to high-quality information online; on average 27% spend time independently researching online. B2B sellers have little control over influencing these decisions.

To know more about B2B buyers, understand the industry they operate in and their core domain. It could be finance, manufacturing, legal, or tech. Often these leads work in multiple markets and with different organizational hierarchies. By learning about the industry dynamics and their role, you are in a better position to address their immediate concerns and communicate seamlessly.

2.  Reach out to your ICP

Narrow your focus on key prospects and build relations with decision-makers (ICP) by educating & informing them through a problem-solving approach. Buyer enablement solutions need to be put in place to aid in their online search. Begin by:

• Defining Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): 

Segment the prospects based on their geography, firmographic & socio-economic factors, psychographics & benefits sought. Once you have honed down on your ICP, try to know where do these decision makers sit on the management hierarchy, and what problems can your business solve for them at each level? Then use your CRM to back this information with customer data, thus confirming your find.

This way, your sales representatives can approach the right ICP leading to a shorter sales cycle and higher CLTV.

Mind you though, often the decision-makers are a group of buyers, and you need a profound strategy to get to them. Nurture connections with the mid-level executive and then try to set up meetings

 Remove obstacles with relevant content at each stage:

• Use articles to create awareness of your product or service

• Case studies and white papers allow prospects to take a call while in consideration.

• Website content and FAQs help decision-makers understand if closing deals with the respective providers will be beneficial.

• Access to highly engaging customer support and email automated workflow can boost purchase & after-sales experience, nudging customers for repeat engagement.

3. Qualify & Nurture Leads

Attracting the right leads to your business is the first step, but to drive conversions qualify them by checking for the following:

• Readiness of the lead to move through your sales funnel. Have they expressed interest in getting to know your product, and what actions show it?
• How many such active leads are in your funnel, and are they qualified sales prospects with a clear intent of buying?
• Are leads open to buying specific products/services relevant to their customer journey stage, or do they go cold at the purchase offer leading to pipeline anxiety for your sales team?
• Do the leads meet the set criteria/attributes for the campaign?

Automated lead scoring models provide you with insights on a lead’s position in the buying journey based on set campaign needs, which can further help you decide where to focus your limited sales resources and increase closings.

4. Weed Out Redundant Leads

Often in your sales cycle, some prospects may drop off at any point mid-way or don’t convert at the last stage leading to a sales pipeline leakage. Such leads that surpass your sales cycle timeline can clog your pipeline. Find a way to clear them:

• Conduct lead enhancement programmes by thoroughly scrubbing, cleaning, standardizing, and enriching the lead before feeding it into the CRM.  
• Reexamine each stage of your funnel to see why these leads go cold. Evaluate the reasons and try to warm them up for conversions through personalized offerings. 
• Use an automated lead tracking system to know the lead status and get notified on its movement henceforth.  

Lead development and enrichment ensures quality at the top of the funnel, which means sales reps can focus their efforts on leads that have a higher chance of becoming customers.

5. Get Rid of Manual Repetitive Processes

Various organizational processes like data entry, processing lead information, sharing product information & more are critical for lead qualification yet highly repetitive and executed manually at most firms. Workflow automation is the need of the hour which can streamline your sales pipeline for better efficiency and resource optimization

Your sales enablement assets like brochures, product demos, and thought leadership articles can be integrated with your CRM to address the pain points of different cohorts with hyper-personalized content.

With revenue as the end goal, pipeline anxiety can make your sales reps miss their targets. In that case, approach selling with a perspective that reduces the AHT (Average Handle Time)-a sales rep takes from acquiring to closing the lead.

Eventually, rely on tools that improve lead conversion probability. Marketboats Campaign and Lead System (CALS) gives you a robust automated system of tracking high conversion leads and reducing lead drop-offs.

6. Map Key Events in a Prospect’s Calendar

53% of marketers feel there are substantial barriers to improving the quality of leads. To reduce this gap, consider meeting leads at a point in their journey where they need your business.

Get into their calendars at the right time while they search for your product or service. It could be when there is a high demand for your business in the industry, a change of leadership that attracts business partnerships, or annual industry reports or events that require attention.

7. Personalized Offerings

Leads in your sales pipeline may have a better UX or a competitive pricing option that leads them to others in the market. However, you can retain such leads by giving them reasons to stay on.

Personalized experiences make them feel valuable as they feel directly connected.  Figma is an excellent example where customers from different industries voice their support in favor of Figma and its product. (Source)

Source:Figma

82% of B2B buyers want the same personalized experience as buying in B2C.

Optimizely personalizes experiences for its customers on its home page.

8. Present Social Proof

Project your business as a potential solution provider and improve your sales cycle:

• Get in touch with trusted customers who can vouch for your product or service.
• Invite your buyers to an event where you highlight your customer challenges and the solution approach which led them to business wins
• Have an open discussion in your industry network where you showcase your thought leadership. 

This way, you widen your network, build authority, and provide social proof for your business.

9. Eliminate Challenges To Embrace Your Product

How your customers perceive your product will vastly differ from how you sell it. Try to step into their shoes and analyze why a lead moves onto a different business to meet their product needs.

Eliminate challenges to embrace your business by:

• Being flexible on cost – offer discounts to a select few
• Give clarity on the product for those unsure by offering a demo or trial.
• If your competition has better features – focus on what you do better than the competition and highlight it – for example, your customer support is superior to others.

Over To You

These sales acceleration techniques would make vetting prospects easier for sales reps , helping you focus more on selling. But to achieve top-of-the-funnel leads consistently, a robust system that can boost lead generation, nurture high-quality leads and drive revenue growth is a requisite. 

At Marketboats, we thrive in helping B2B technology brands accelerate sales by attracting the right leads, using intent and account-based targeting, and cleansing your lists for higher ROI.In case you are in need of such high-quality leads, reach us at sales@marketboats.com or +1 914 407 3070 and get a hands-on understanding of our success cases and process-oriented lead approach.