This is Inbox Hacking, a Free Newsletter for email marketers eager to level up. Email marketing insights, tools, & tactics sent twice per week. Someone forwarded you our Newsletter? Sign up for your Free subscription. Sales struggles can be avoided with a look into buyer brainsā 2 sales reports give us that peek.
Welcome back to those who were off for the Juneteenth holiday.Ā
In todayās feature story, Iāve got highlights from two sales reports. One focuses on digital selling, the other on sales enablement. These key highlights should help you avoid sales slumps and get yourself out of one if need be.
Letās get on with it.
2 Sales Reports (by Showpad)
- Digital Selling
- Sales Enablement
FYI: Sales enablement is the set of tools and content provided to sales teams to help them sell smarter and more. Sales enablement also includes the processes that marketers undertake to help sales reps sell. ~Oracle
š¤ØOnly 29% of salespeople are trained to sell virtually ~SalesForce
Takeaways from Digital Selling Report
This first report focuses on the cost to brands that have digital reluctance. Example, debating a TikTok strategy for 12 monthsā then youāre a year behind or too late altogether.
ā86% of U.S. buyers prefer being sold to virtually. (87% U.K.)
Why? Buyers wanna avoid some icky old-school selling techniques:
- Salespeeps refusing to accept a no (said 48% of survey respondents)
- Persistent calls / messages (47%)
- Salespersonās limited product knowledge (27%)
Also, about a quarter of buyers said salesfolk sent too much information.
Professional Selling isnāt Consumable?
B2B needs more B2C tendencies.
LinkedIn wasnāt even close to other platforms when it came to business purchases.
YouTube nearly doubled LinkedInās influence, Instagram more than doubled it, and Facebook, which sadly refuses to die, had almost triple the impact of LinkedIn!
ā87% of businesses see social selling as instrumental to the future of B2B selling.
(Seth Godinās thoughts on social selling / marketing)
Takeaways from Sales Enablement Report
Deeper dive into what sales enablement is via SalesForce, which found 74% of sellers say selling is becoming more consultative and less transactional.
ā75% of B2B sales organizations now have a dedicated sales enablement function.
Sales enablement benefits every role inside a company, not just the marketing and salespeople.
Because these facts can affect every department:
- 44% of millennial B2B buyers would prefer a completely rep-free buying experience
- 93% of sales reps say virtually selling has challenges that hinder success
- ā¦ so 58% of reps need dedicated coaching from sales managers
Plus, itās hard to find and keep quality people, yeah?
āA strong sales enablement function is invaluable in creating repeatable, scalable training for new hires and existing employees alike.ā
Potential 25% reduction in sales rep onboarding time with the right sales enablement strategy and technology comboā also increases productivity among marketing professionals by 25%.
3 Things Sales Enablement Can Prevent:
- Quiet quittingā¦ noisy take-this-job-and-shove-it exits tooš
- Outdated / inaccurate content
- Marketing assets that canāt be found or never get used
āMarketing professionals report up to 80% of their content goes unused.
Yikes! If that were the only problem solved by sales enablement programs, it would be worth it.
Sales Reports Summed Up
*Both reports are at Showpad if you wanna download the full intel.
Life is not going 100% digital – thankfully, and I hope Zuckās metaverse bankrupts Facebook.
But selling isnāt going back to analog either, as the above statistics show.
And we have to remember B2B buyers may not see themselves that way.
They may just feel like a person with a problem.
No different than a consumer looking for a short-form video on how to get gum out of the carpet or organize their inbox.
BTW, Top 3 Subject Lines In My Inbox (+why they worked)
- 97% accuracy at hitting winners over the past 8 years? (only %%% SL among 50 emails)
- Blood Donors Needed on Tuesday in Commerce (my city, a need, & Iāve got 5 extra pintsš )
- Techno-Narcissism (new / made-up term generates curiosity)
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Send emails when people are in their inbox.Ā
Mary Jane is like you, me, and 99% of email readers.
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Another optionā accept the fact that all of us are idiots. Things will go smoother.
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Facts and Stats
- Telling your brandās story & inviting someone into the story are polar opposites (Dr. JJ Peterson)
- Over 70% of American small businesses lack a CTA on their websites (Social Media Examiner)
- User-generated content gets 29% higher web conversions than campaigns or websites without UGC (EveryoneSocial)
Bonus: Showpad study shows 92% of Millennial and Gen Z buyers prefer to be sold to virtually.
Using email marketing for your business?
Youāll wanna check out Inbox Mailers.
They’re changing the game.
How?
Their software enables brands to know when subscribers are in their inbox while triggering an email that generates a 50% ā 70% open rate with no degradation in the click-to-open rate.
The best part?
Inbox Mailers integrates with almost all major ESPs to easily and instantly fire your triggered email, using your ESP, from your domain at the moment your subscriber is in their inbox.
Learn more with a free one-on-one demo of Inbox Mailers.
*Also warms up IPs in about half the time and can re-engage up to 30% of your dead list.
Get Hacking
A/B testing got ya scared shirtless?š
Think your ESP testing might glitch and annoy your subscribers?
No worries. Use this simple Trello option to track your A/B testing.
Keep it simple, test one send against another.
Test subject line wording, length, and emoji options.
Test email body word count, emotion levels, and image variety.
ESPs give you more A/B testing metrics but some mailers prefer to simplify and compare two different sends.
*Other awesome email marketers could use Inbox Hacking. Please forward them this email. Thank YOU for reading.
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