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In the competitive world of B2B sales, almost every customer interaction holds the potential to influence the future of a business. This is where the power of effective digital solutions comes into play. Businesses looking to grow and develop connections with current and potential customers should embrace digital marketing and the advantages it brings. The opportunities to boost brand awareness, generate and convert high-quality leads, and remain top of mind among potential customers are many.
This, in turn, helps businesses establish a strong sales pipeline, successfully close deals, and deliver sales. In this blog post, we explain why a sales pipeline is important for your business and share 10 digital solutions you need to boost your pipeline year-round. Because, while maintaining your level of sales is good, growing your level of sales is better, especially if you want to create a difference for your business in a crowded, competitive marketplace.
Who are we? Smartcore is the best-in-class B2B food and nutrition marketing solutions partner for smarter digital campaigns that drive business growth – with unrivalled expertise in your prospects. Our invaluable data, including an extensive global network of over 360,000 ingredients buyers, data-driven insights, and specialised digital content channels in the B2B food and nutrition industry are what set us apart from the rest. This strong synergy translates into smarter solutions that we custom-created to maximise your brand awareness, generate excellent-quality leads, and deliver greater returns on your investment and time.
Let's explore 10 digital solutions that will help guide your prospects through each stage of the digital sales & marketing funnel to a successful close. These solutions can be tailored to fit your specific goals and support your sales efforts:
1. Content Marketing: Put out content that is relevant, insightful, and resonates with your buyers’ needs. With more and more buyers researching ingredients sellers online, this approach will not only ensure you remain top of mind among prospects but could be the reason a potential customer chooses you over a competitor. Additionally, ensure your content is positioned alongside relevant expert content for maximum visibility, credibility, and engagement. This increases the chances of generating leads and your prospects progressing through the sales pipeline. Not sure where to get started? Read our detailed content marketing guide here.
Want to create and share consistently impactful content that connects with your target audience? Our Custom Content Production is an excellent choice. Whether it’s custom videos and articles, interviews, infographics, reports, surveys, or whitepapers that differentiates you from competitors, we can deliver the most in-demand types of custom content in the industry.
2. Account Based Marketing: Target specific job functions, organisation types, and countries with an ABM strategy. Personalise campaigns to help you reach high-value prospects and key decision makers. The simultaneous use of sales and marketing resources on a select few accounts results in increased conversions, reduced resource wastage, and accelerated sales growth.
3. Social Media Marketing: Maintain an active presence on social media. Interact with your current and potential customers by sharing news or offers, trends, and insights. This engagement can speed up the movement of your prospects through the sales pipeline.
4. Retargeting: Implement retargeting campaigns to re-engage prospects who previously interacted with your brand but didn’t convert. By displaying tailored ads to these potential customers, you can bring them back into your sales pipeline and increase the chances of them converting.
Our Targeted Ads are a great digital solution if you’re looking to enhance your visibility and reach targeted ingredients-buying audiences—over 2,120,000 unique annual visitors to our websites (Ingredients Network, Fi Global Insights, and Vitafoods Insights) or organiser-verified attendees of Fi Europe and Vitafoods Europe—through display banners, LinkedIn ads or InStream videos as they browse the web. You can also segment this targeted audience further based on their job function and nature of business or region.
5. Webinar Marketing: Webinars attract high-quality leads, and according to statistics on Demand Sage, as of 2023, the global webinar market has exceeded $1 billion, with experts projecting it to reach $5 billion by 2035. They effortlessly connect interaction, learning, lead generation, and sales, while building trust among an engaged audience in a personal way. If you want a tool that will help you find and possibly convert leads into sales or if you want direct access to potential buyers interested in your products and services, then webinar marketing is the way to go. Identify your target audience, choose a topic that addresses their pain points, create convincing content, and begin your webinar marketing journey. We’ve got all the information on how you can master webinars in 2024 here.
Or, if you’re looking to reach an engaged live and on-demand audience with your product or service, we can help. Our Editorial Webinar Calendar 2024 covers the most talked about topics in the F&B and nutraceuticals industry. Pick the one most relevant to your business, select your highly customised Webinar Sponsorship Package, and position your brand alongside compelling content to boost brand awareness, generate GDPR-compliant leads among specific ingredient buyers, and establish thought leadership in your industry.
6. Email Marketing: Email campaigns are a great way to generate or nurture your leads and move them through the digital sales & marketing funnel. Make sure you’re not sending emails in bulk and continuously but focus on building a connection with your audience by sending relevant, timely, and targeted communication. If done well, email marketing is a strong tool that can help you close sales. How? As an example, in cases where you find yourself competing against the one-size fits-all approach of lower priced and quality companies, emails offer you the perfect opportunity to deliver personalised messages that address the pain points of your prospect. The best part? It’s delivered directly to their inbox.
7. Marketing Atomation: Automation tools are a must in the world of sales, especially if administration is not your favourite thing to do. Not only do they free up time, resources, and energy spent on non-revenue bringing yet essential roles; but they help optimise the way and speed at which you communicate with your prospects and support an active online presence on multiple channels. Automation also allows you to streamline processes, leading to more effective conversations and conversions.
8. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Get your content team to audit your website and check content for relevant keywords and links used, the metadata, and any errors that might prevent your site from ranking well. With SEO, if done right, you can increase the chances of potential customers’ finding you online, optimise their user experience as they browse your website or landing pages, contributing to a pleasant interaction and possible higher conversion rate.
9. Live Chat: Set up a live chat to talk in real time with your prospects, offer support and answer any questions they might have about your products or business. A live chat can improve your potential customers’ experience and even help get leads and drive sales without adding excessive extra costs.
10. Landing Pages and Call to Actions (CTAs): Having custom landing pages allows you to clearly define the aim of your sales outreach campaigns, while a strong CTA can prompt your prospects into taking a specific desired action. Together, they are a perfect way to find potential new customers. You can generate leads by having visitors give their contact details, download a marketing asset, or sign up for your newsletter.
To summarise, including a few or all of these digital solutions will help nurture your prospects through your sales pipeline towards the coveted "closed-won" status.
Digital solutions are essential for growing your sales pipeline year-round. Partner with us and leverage our smarter digital marketing campaigns that empower you to reach your buyers and drive business growth. Our invaluable data, including an extensive global network of over 360,000 ingredients buyers, data-driven insights, and specialised digital content channels in the B2B food and nutrition industry, are what set us apart from the rest.
Do you want to generate excellent-quality GDPR-compliant leads and grow your sales pipeline? Choose our Lead Generation Digital Package for goal-specific success. Explore some of our success stories to see how we’ve helped other businesses grow their sales pipeline with digital solutions.
Contact us today to learn more about the services we offer and the challenges we can address for your brand. Get in touch here.
Author
Serena Warren
11 December 2023