The future is already here.
You have driverless cars on the streets, AI that can write code and poetry, and drones delivering your groceries. Unsurprisingly, the world of B2B sales is not immune to these changes.
By 2025, Gartner predicts that 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur in digital channels. Customer experience has become a critical differentiator - organizations that provide a great buying experience will grow twice as fast as those that provide an average one.
How do B2B reps deliver compelling buying experiences that are sure to build customer trust and lead to more sales?
Bring compelling buying experiences to life with digital sales rooms
Enter digital sales rooms. With digital sales rooms, reps can collaborate with their buying teams in a secure environment, provide easy access to relevant information, speed up discussions, and keep track of buyer engagement.
Gartner expects that 30% of B2B sales cycles will be managed through digital sales rooms by 2026. Reps must combine human and digital interactions in the buying process given that 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience.
During the buying process, customer interactions are scattered across face to face or virtual meetings, phone calls, multi-threaded email exchanges, and LinkedIn conversations. Digital sales rooms streamline the buying journey, allowing sales reps to serve customers and prospects by sharing relevant content, updates, and action plans, in one shared online space.
5 reasons why digital sales rooms are here to stay
The following five benefits make digital sales rooms a sound investment:
#1 - Share relevant information
The key to influencing buyer mindset and winning deals is relevance. 90% of decision makers say it is important for reps to provide relevant content at each stage of the buying process.
This can prove challenging when information is scattered across multiple channels. A digital sales room allows sellers to:
- Curate relevant information for different buyer personas in a single place
- Make sure all members of the buying team are on the same page without overwhelming them
#2 - Engage buyers
B2B customers expect fast, intuitive, and personalized buying experiences. A Forrester study shows that B2B buyers want an experience tailored to their needs. Digital sales rooms allow reps to:
- Discover, customize, and share content personalized for each member of the buying team
- Keep track of everything with call notes and action items for each meeting
#3 - Deal with multiple stakeholders
B2B buying has become increasingly complex. Purchasing teams have grown in size, with 11 or more people involved in buying decisions. For complex deals, this number can reach up to 20 different individuals.
Organizations that take advantage of multithreaded engagements grow revenue 50% faster than their competitors. Digital sales rooms help reps to:
- Manage multithreaded engagements with bi-directional chat communication between customers and internal stakeholders
- Bring together content, workflows, and collaboration to make it easier for customers to make informed purchasing decisions
#4 - Track buyer engagement
Do you know if the content you share has an impact on your buyers? Customers are more likely to purchase your solutions when your content educates, informs, and persuades them.
A digital sales room allows sellers to:
- Monitor the time spent by the buying team on different pieces of content
- Use content engagement insights to personalize buyer outreach
#5 - Close deals faster
Sales managers have trouble identifying stalled deals because they don’t have a reliable way to assess risk and measure progress in their reps' deals.
With digital sales rooms, sales managers can:
- Know exactly where a deal stands by tracking what content reps have shared and how buyers have interacted with it
- Identify and address specific bottlenecks that can help move the deal forward
3 factors to consider while selecting a digital sales room
A digital sales room can be a standalone solution or come bundled with a sales enablement tool that you are already using. Whatever you choose, keep these basic considerations in mind while choosing a digital sales room solution:
- Data security - A digital sales room is a dedicated online space where confidential information is exchanged between different parties. You may also need to comply with organization-specific legal requirements before sharing information. Before investing in a digital sales room, ask about the security measures used by the solution provider.
- Content suggestions - A digital sales room makes it easy for sellers to share content with the buying team at every stage of the sales process. However, finding the right content to share can still be a challenge. A digital sales room is most effective when it can deliver content recommendations based on the context of the ongoing deal, such as use cases, buyer personas, competition, segment, and geography etc.
- Engagement tracking - Digital sales room should deliver visibility on how prospects engage with content. Identifying which pieces of content were effective (and which were not) is useful in moving the deal in the right direction.
However, not all DSRs are built similarly. Our digital sales rooms feature contextual content recommendations, bi-directional communication through a chat interface, engagement analytics, and a timeline of crucial meetings.
With GTM Buddy, sellers can share the most relevant content with multiple stakeholders in the buying team in a secure virtual environment. Sales reps can achieve faster revenue growth with digital sales rooms because they reduce buyer friction and boost customer relationships.
