With Personalization, Sales Needs to Catch Up to Marketing

Personalization in marketing is table stakes. Everything from promotional emails addressing recipients by name to individualized Netflix homepages and Spotify Wrapped playlists demonstrates a fundamental truth of marketing: The personal touch goes a long way. Today’s consumers have come to expect a personalized experience, regardless of whether it’s in a b-to-c or b-to-b environment.

Why, then, has it taken marketing’s counterpart, sales, so long to catch up? Despite the immense weight placed on personalization, sales reps are failing to sufficiently provide it. They’re struggling to capture and maintain the attention of buyers, who are beginning to take note: 66% of customers recently told Salesforce that while they expect companies to understand their unique needs, only 34% of companies actually do.

This illustrates a discrepancy between the content buyers expect from sellers and that which they ultimately receive. The leading cause of this is a lack of technology that enables sellers to personalize content easily, efficiently and at scale. Sellers need a tech stack that empowers them to tailor buyer engagement to each and every unique opportunity.

At Seismic, for example, we’ve noticed a growing hunger for tech that simplifies personalization: From 2021 to 2022, we saw a 32% increase in customers using personalized services.

But there’s still a long way to go, especially for those who don’t have technology like enablement tools at their disposal. Recent data revealed that 83% of U.S.-based revenue professionals who don’t use enablement technology, for example, use content that is not personalizable enough. Almost two-thirds (61%) noted the content they use is not easily accessible or not on brand.

When go-to-market (GTM) teams go without enablement tools in particular, they’re stuck using content that is irrelevant to their clients’ use cases, individual companies and even entire industries.

GTM teams should not have to fly blind when it comes to sharing relevant content with prospects and customers. Digital sales rooms are a surefire way to supercharge personalization efforts and buyer engagement. 

Embrace the digital sales room

A digital sales room (DSR) is a microsite where sellers can connect with buyers and other stakeholders to share relevant content and have real-time conversations. When in-person meetings are few and far between, digital sales rooms become a hub for frequent engagement.

According to Gartner, the b-to-b sales process involves the following “buying jobs”:

1. Problem identification: What issue are we trying to solve?
2. Solution exploration: What tools exist to solve it?
3. Requirements building: What exactly do we need to buy to solve our problem?
4. Supplier selection: Which tool does the best job at solving our problem?
5. Validation: Did we choose the right solution?
6. Consensus creation: Are the relevant stakeholders aligned with this choice?

Buyers typically manage the first three jobs as they begin their search. That means it’s up to the GTM team to complete the last three tasks, and DSRs are the ideal location to store all of this information.

DSRs provide buyers with a singular location they can return to at their leisure to read and reread pitch decks, ebooks and other personalized materials. It both simplifies the information-gathering process for buyers and allows sellers to easily access the context and history of their relationship. 

An important caveat: DSRs are only successful when they are thoughtfully utilized and carefully maintained. Asking prospects to navigate a hodgepodge of various case studies and product descriptions can be counterproductive, so be sure to keep things consolidated and well-organized.

On a similar note, sales reps should work with their marketing counterparts and the rest of the GTM team to consistently upload new, customized content to the DSR. Sharing assets that prospects are already interested in can only get you so far; it’s crucial to manage a steady stream of up-to-date, on-brand information that’s tailored to specific opportunities to keep potential buyers coming back. This aligns with the common buyer behavior known as “looping,” or the process of visiting the same channel multiple times throughout the sales cycle.

By the numbers

DSR usage at Seismic increased by 187% from 2021 to 2022, with buyer engagement increasing 197% year over year. Furthermore, a recent internal study revealed that sales reps who met or exceeded their quota created 150% more DSRs for their active opportunities than those who failed to hit their goals. These reps also had five times as many opportunities where they used DSRs in the sales process and generated 420% higher net new revenue.

This reaffirms the value buyers place on accessible, personalized content. With the average buyer spending just 17% of their time meeting with potential vendors, DSRs allow GTM teams to make the most of every interaction with prospects. Storing compelling, individualized content in one place entices potential customers to keep coming back for more—especially if they know new information will be waiting for them.

Digital sales rooms make accessing personalized content seamless and efficient for prospective buyers, and there is a proven correlation between increased personalization and buyer engagement. By leveraging the power of DSRs, enterprises can expedite personalization and their sales processes overall, ultimately delivering better customer experiences across the board.