If you have a business that sells to other businesses (B2B), you might have found that your sales have been heavily impacted by COVID-19 restrictions over the past couple of years. Your B2B customers might have changed their buying habits (like increasingly going digital), or they may have decreased their orders from you if their operations have been significantly affected.
If your B2B sales have struggled over the past two years, read on to find out about strategies you can use to increase them in 2022.
Strategy 1: Make buying online easy for your B2B customers
One of the biggest impacts of COVID-restrictions was that it has escalated the move to online buying in both the B2C and the B2B markets. Many consumers and businesses in both markets have had no choice but to buy and sell products or services online since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Many of these consumers and businesses will continue to buy online even after the pandemic is over. That trend means that it’s crucial to make your online buying experience as easy and satisfying as possible for your B2B customers.
This means that you must ensure that:
- it’s easy for your B2B customers to find and order the products they need from you online.
- you have secure online payment systems in place.
- you have a fast and efficient delivery system in place for your B2B orders.
Strategy 2: Implement your backup plan
If you have primarily relied on personal, face-to-face selling to maximise your B2B sales in the past, it’s time to rethink that strategy. The travel activities of sales reps have been restricted over the past couple of years, and even though restrictions are lifting, there’s no guarantee that they won’t come back.
If you haven’t already done so, you need to crank up your digital marketing activities to reduce your reliance on face-to-face selling. Digital marketing activities are largely restriction-proof!
Make sure that your digital marketing activities have a high visual impact by using photos and videos of your products and services. You should also ensure that you use online marketing metrics to track the impact of your digital marketing activities. Metrics such as clicks, shares and sales generated.
Strategy 3: Ask for testimonials from your B2B customers
Testimonials from satisfied customers are an extremely powerful marketing tool. Many B2B buyers will do plenty of research before buying, so make sure you get plenty of testimonials from your satisfied clients and ensure that they are highly visible on all your online communication channels (your website, social media, email marketing, etc.).
Strategy 4: Encourage referrals from your B2B customers
Encouraging referrals from your B2B customers is another effective strategy you can use to increase your sales. For example, you could encourage referrals by providing your referring customers with an incentive such as a discount on their next order for any paying customers they refer to you.
It’s been a generally tough time in B2B markets over the past couple of years, but there are effective strategies you can use in both the good times and the tough times to help you maximise your sales.
Earlypay has supported Australian SMEs with fast and flexible alternative funding solutions for more than 20 years. Our invoice finance, and asset finance products allow business owners to proactively manage their cash flow, freeing up your working capital for investing in growth. To chat about whether our solutions could be right for your business, call us on 1300 760 205. If your business has been impacted by COVID-19, our participation in the SME Recovery Loan Scheme could be of interest.
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