How to Drive Growth with Digital Sales Communication

To meet targets and ensure orders are filled, your sales representatives must build and maintain strong relationships with retailers and distributors. While many emerging markets still rely on manual communication, more progressive markets have shifted to digitized communication. A recent Google survey of over 2,700 B2B sales managers revealed that many top sales leaders significantly underestimated the importance of strategically digitizing sales communications. Here’s what you need to know about driving sales with digital communication so your business stays competitive.

Why Manual Communication Limits Your Sales and Costs More

In today's world of instant gratification, slow response times can result in lost sales. Customers often face frustrations when requests are not attended to promptly. By digitizing communication, you can transform customer interactions into personalized, high-quality experiences. Providing your sales team with access to raw POS data enables them to respond quickly and efficiently, ensuring they allocate the right resources to meet customer needs.

Digital Communication is Directly Linked to Sales

Statistics show that smaller FMCG brands now account for over 53% of sales growth in their sector, with e-commerce's market share climbing to 17%. This shift illustrates that the future of sales is moving towards digital. However, it’s important to combine technology with a human touch for optimal results. Savvy marketers leverage technology to increase visibility across distribution networks and empower sales reps to make strategic, data-driven decisions that align with merchant needs.

Why Digitalization and Sales are Inextricably Linked

The sales process has evolved from in-person interactions to a digital-first approach. Customers now conduct online research before engaging with sales representatives. According to Roland Berger research, 46% of customers under 35 prefer to Google products themselves. As a result, customers dictate when they need sales assistance, making your website a critical area of investment. It should effectively inform customers and facilitate their purchasing decisions.

Three Key Steps to Digitizing Your Sales

1. Launch Fresh Communication Channels
   Utilize “social selling” to promote your new sales channels on social media. Position yourself as an opinion leader by sharing valuable insights, solutions to common pain points, and your expertise. This approach will help you gain visibility and build trust with potential customers.
2. Adapt Your Website to Speak Directly to Customer Needs
   Your website is the starting point of the purchasing process. Organize content and communication to create a smooth, intuitive customer journey. Understand what information your customers need during their early decision-making phases. Identifying factors that convert visitors into paying customers will help you design effective navigation and layout.
3. Make Understanding Customers Central to Your Technology Strategy
   Social networks can provide insights into customer preferences, and sales data can do the same. By tracking customer interactions alongside sales data, you can identify key touchpoints, such as website behavior and purchasing patterns. This information will help you refine your customer persona and allow you to engage with them proactively.

The Bottom Line

Manual sales processes are becoming obsolete. To drive sales and future-proof your business, you must digitize your communication and integrate it with technology. This strategy enables you to better understand and effectively communicate with your customers, responding to their needs in real time. By adopting this approach, you can accelerate sales growth significantly. The question is not whether to digitize sales but when to do so to drive business growth.

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