Digital transformation is forcing sales leaders to reassess how they find, lead, and nurture customers. Understanding the new sales reality and shifting resources accordingly has become a critical success factor. Sales leaders who thrive in this new environment think strategically about how best to use their digital assets to achieve their sales goals. They understand the value of data and invest in software and processes that unlock insights. They focus on strategic target accounts and build relationships with decision makers across all relevant departments. They also run experiments to test different digital solutions for specific challenges. These seven steps will help you create a compelling digital strategy that aligns with your company’s broader business objectives while meeting your unique sales goals:

Establish your company’s business objectives

Every company has a unique set of business objectives. To set your digital strategy, you need to understand your company’s business objectives for sales. Depending on your company’s industry, your sales objectives and business objectives might include: - Increasing your revenue from a specific segment or customer type - Expanding your customer base - Increasing customer satisfaction and retention - Increasing your lead conversion rate - Reducing time to close

Determine your unique sales challenge

Having a clear understanding of the business objectives will help you identify your unique sales challenge. Most sales challenges fall into the following buckets: - Closing more deals - Closing more bigger deals - Closing deals faster - Improving customer experience - Increasing customer retention - Increasing customer satisfaction

Develop a digital toolkit to address the challenge

Once you understand your unique challenge and the business objectives, you can start to develop a digital toolkit. The best digital strategy doesn’t have a single tool. It includes a wide variety of digital channels, from paid advertising to content marketing to email and social media. The digital toolkit should address each of your business objectives. For example, if you have a challenge closing more bigger deals, your digital toolkit should include a lead generation strategy and outreach strategy that targets high-value accounts. At Aquafruit Media, we can help you narrow down your toolkit according to your specific business goals. Schedule a call to consult our team of experts.

Define your ideal customer profile

An ideal customer profile identifies the key characteristics of your best customers. It is based on data that shows what your best customers are like and the commonalities between them. A common mistake companies make is to create a customer profile based on an existing customer base. If your customer base represents 5% of the market and your ideal customer profile is based on that customer base, your sales strategy will struggle to scale. To create an ideal customer profile, you’ll need to base it on a larger data set that represents your target market. Ideally, your data set will be segmented by company size, industry, and revenue, so that you can identify the ideal customer for your product and sales stage.

Choose your target accounts and lead identification process

Every sales challenge is unique, but your target accounts will be similar across all challenges. Your target accounts are the customers you plan to sell your product to. They’re the people who have a problem and are actively searching for a solution. Target accounts may also be looking for new suppliers or partners. These accounts are your main focus. You’ll invest time and energy into marketing to them and nurturing them so they become your customers. In many ways, you’ll be treating them like you would a customer who has already purchased from you. You need to identify your lead identification process. This is how you will find target accounts to sell to. Some industries, like B2B sales, require a long sales cycle. You can’t go out and sell to a new set of accounts every month. In industries like B2B, where there is a long sales cycle, you’ll want to focus on finding target accounts that are further along in the buying cycle. You may want to focus on accounts that have already identified their problem and are actively looking for a solution.

Identify digital experiments

Digital transformation is an ongoing process. You can’t simply create a new digital strategy and expect to see results after a few months. You have to be nimble and willing to try new things, like new marketing channels and lead generation strategies. You should be constantly looking at your data and asking questions. What is working? What isn’t? What holes does your data reveal? That data will help you identify the experiments you should run next. How do you know what experiments to run? It all comes down to your priorities. What are your company’s business objectives? What are your unique sales challenges? What are your current digital strategies? Your existing strategies will highlight the opportunities and challenges facing your sales team. Your business objectives and sales challenges will help you identify what to prioritize in your experiments.

Wrapping up

Digital transformation is a complex challenge. It involves finding the right resources, creating engaging content, and identifying the right distribution channels. It also requires you to understand your customers and how best to engage with them across their journey. That journey may start with brand awareness and lead to a customer-centered purchase decision. It may be driven by seeking out information on a specific problem or need, or it might be something as simple as needing a quick solution to a common problem. Your digital strategy needs to reflect the needs of each individual customer, while supporting the broader goals of your company. Our Aquafruit Media team is an expert in crafting custom digital strategies that bring results. You can schedule a call with us and have our professional team on your side.

‍