Business buying is changing, and marketers must change with it—fast. I take inspiration from Brent Adamson’s article in Harvard Business Review with the provocative title, “Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing Are Becoming Obsolete.” Adamson explains that business buying no longer fits the linear “handoff” model between marketing and sales. Instead, it requires a deep understanding of each account’s buying process and developing a unified selling process that maps to it.

So, we know sales and marketing must evolve. But how?

Let’s review some of the fresh ideas that are emerging to keep us going.

Buyer/seller matching platforms. Like a matchmaker for business and service providers, these platforms help create and manager connections. One example is ShapeConnect, a matching platform designed to speed up the business buying process and simplify vendor relationship management for small and midsize firms. ShapeConnect acts like a concierge, vetting new vendors, and providing expert advisors to help buyers find the right fit. Contracts are then managed through the platform, and ShapeConnect earns a commission as payments flow through. Founder Brian Zielinski says that buyers can make vendor decisions nine times faster than normal, sometimes as quickly as two weeks. The secret, he says, is the trust generated by ShapeConnect’s vetting process.

Personality-based marketing. Infer the personality of your buyers, and adjust your outreach to fit their predicted buying styles. Myers Briggs meets the Buyer Journey, you might say. Scott Gillum’s Carbon Design agency, for one, argues that purchase decisions in buying groups are “driven by individuals’ personal motivations, not titles or roles.” Check out their ebook, The Power of Personality. And, Leela Gill of xiQ Inc., claims a 24% improvement in close rates with their personality driven sales and marketing platform. You can register to test up to five accounts and contacts. (My own personality was labeled Dominant…uh oh). This is interesting stuff and could be a breakthrough on the order of intent data.  

Outbound media beyond email. Buyers, especially those working from home, are suffering from “digital fatigue.” Several companies offer an old-school twist that can counter that. PFL, for instance, provides a platform that connects to your martech stack to integrate direct mail into your communications mix. Postal mail certainly gets opened at far higher rates than email!

Self-service. New research from the UK agency Considered Content reveals that B2B buying after Covid is longer, slower, and more risk averse than ever. But the research also found that more than half of B2B buyers would prefer to be able to buy without the involvement of a salesperson at all. At the same time, only 9% of marketers say they are providing all the information online that buyers need to make a purchase decision. Instead, marketers must prepare for more comprehensive online buying capabilities. No wonder Bruce Biegel of Winterberry Group predicted at last year’s MCNY Annual Outlook luncheon event that “B2B ecommerce will grow at a 17.9% CAGR and hit $1.9 trillion by 2023—doubling from 2019.”

Targeted broadcast media. With the expansion of connected television (CTV), B2B marketers have an affordable way to get the persuasive power of television advertising in front of business executives in their living rooms at home. Here’s more on why CTV is ripe for experimentation for B2B marketers.

And one dud: Outsourced LinkedIn prospecting. Are you as bombarded as I am with pitches from companies that want to take over your LinkedIn prospecting? Too many offerings to count. Too much time to evaluate the relative merits of those that look reputable. And too many whose outreach style is so questionable that you wouldn’t want them handling yours.

What’s now and next?

If you’ve tried any of these approaches or services, please share your experiences with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. And if you’re still considering any of them, I’m interested to learn why (or why not).

About the Author

Ruth P. Stevens, past president of DMCNY, consults on B2B marketing and teaches marketing at NYU Stern and other business schools here and abroad. Reach her at ruth@ruthstevens.com