Why Aligning with Your Buyer‘s Communication Preferences is Critical for Sales Success
As a salesperson, it‘s natural to gravitate towards the communication methods you‘re most comfortable with. Maybe you love the thrill of a cold call, maybe you pride yourself on your ability to craft the perfect prospecting email, or maybe you spend hours meticulously crafting custom videos for each of your sales targets.
But here‘s the hard truth: It doesn‘t matter how much you like a particular outreach method if your buyer doesn‘t like it too. In today‘s Age of the Customer, sales success hinges on your ability to engage prospects on their terms.
The salespeople who win more deals put their own preferences aside and adapt their communication style to what works best for each unique buyer. In this article, we‘ll dive into the data behind why aligning with buyer preferences is so critical, and provide a blueprint for determining and acting on those preferences to maximize your chances of sales success.
By the Numbers: Sales Communication Statistics
Before we get into the how, let‘s talk about the why. Here are some of the most compelling statistics that highlight just how important it is for salespeople to engage buyers using their preferred communication channels:
| Statistic | Source |
|---|---|
| 61% of B2B transactions start online, 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep | DemandGen Report |
| 60% of customers say no four times before saying yes, so persistence (but not pushiness) is key | Marketing Donut |
| 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the initial meeting, but 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt | Scripted |
The takeaway from these statistics is clear: Modern B2B buyers are doing more research online and engaging with sales later in their buying journey. They expect salespeople to be persistent in follow up, but in a helpful and tailored way. Meeting them where they are with relevant content and communication is absolutely essential.
So how can you uncover your buyers‘ preferences and put that insight into action? Let‘s explore some key strategies.
3 Ways to Determine Your Buyer‘s Ideal Communication Method
Short of straight up asking your prospect "How do you prefer I communicate with you?", figuring out the best way to engage each buyer can feel like a guessing game. But if you know what signs to look for, your buyers will usually reveal their preferences through their behavior.
Here are three of the most telling indicators:
1. How do they respond to your initial outreach?
Did your buyer reply to your prospecting email with a lengthy, thoughtful response? There‘s a good chance they see email as an effective way to communicate. Did they respond to your voicemail by calling you back almost immediately? Phone is likely their preferred method. Meeting your buyer "in the middle" with the communication channel they choose to respond to is usually a safe bet.
2. Do they answer your calls or always send you to voicemail?
If your buyer picks up the phone and seems happy to chat every time you call, that‘s a clear sign they‘re comfortable communicating that way. If you always get their voicemail and they‘re slow to return your calls (or don‘t return them at all), that could indicate phone isn‘t their favorite. Try following up with an email that recaps your reason for calling and go from there.
3. How do they interact with you on social media?
If your buyer is regularly liking, commenting on, and resharing your LinkedIn posts, it may be worth trying to strike up a conversation via LinkedIn messaging to capitalize on that engagement. If you tweeted at your buyer and they tweeted back, try transitioning the conversation to Twitter DMs. The key is looking for the platforms where your buyer seems most responsive and engaged with your content and using those as a starting point for more direct communication.
A Hybrid Approach Usually Works Best
All of that said, your communication with any given buyer will likely occur across multiple channels. A 2020 poll by sales strategy firm RAIN Group found that 90% of buyers say they prefer a mix of email, phone, and virtual communication with sellers.
That means even if you‘ve determined that your buyer has a strong preference for email, you shouldn‘t completely swear off phone calls. The RAIN Group study also found that 69% of buyers say they sometimes like communicating with sellers over the phone. Your goal is to find the right balance.
Tips for Effectively Acting on Buyer Communication Preferences
Once you have a sense of how your buyer prefers to engage, what can you do to maximize the effectiveness of your communication while respecting their preferences? Let‘s look at some best practices and examples for popular channels like email, phone, and social media.
Email Communication Best Practices
Email consistently ranks as B2B buyers‘ preferred communication channel with vendors. A McKinsey study found that 87% of buyers prefer email communication during the awareness stage of their buying journey.
But that doesn‘t give you free rein to constantly flood your buyer‘s inbox with generic, impersonal messages. To make email an effective sales channel:
- Keep your emails brief, relevant and to-the-point. Aim for 5 sentences max. Buyers don‘t have time to sift through long, rambling messages.
- Personalize your message as much as possible. Reference a trigger event, piece of content they engaged with, or challenge they‘re likely facing.
- Include a clear call-to-action. What do you want the buyer to do after reading your email? Make it obvious, whether it‘s responding to a question, booking a call, or downloading a resource.
- Add value in every touch. Each email should provide something of substance to the buyer, whether it‘s an interesting industry stat, a helpful best practice, or a relevant case study.
Here‘s an example of an effective sales email that ticks those boxes:
Subject Line: Saw your tweet on cybersecurity – thoughts from our CISO
Hi Sarah,
I noticed your tweet yesterday about the challenges of securing remote workforces and wanted to share a couple quick insights from our CISO, Andrew Smith.
He said the biggest mistake he sees companies making is relying on legacy VPNs, which leave major gaps in visibility. His recommendation is to look for a modern ZTNA solution that provides granular access controls and robust threat monitoring.
I thought this might be helpful given the issues you mentioned. Happy to put you in touch with Andrew directly if you want to dive deeper on this – just let me know!
Best,
Joe
Phone Best Practices
While phone calls are undoubtedly still an important part of a salesperson‘s toolkit, resist the urge to make them the default for every buyer. In a 2018 survey by TOPO, an overwhelming 95% of buyers said they almost never respond to cold calls.
When you‘ve established that a buyer is open to phone communication, keep these tips in mind:
- Ask for permission. Send your buyer an email or leave a voicemail saying something like "I have some ideas that might help address [challenge] – would you be open to a quick 10-minute call to discuss?"
- Have a clear agenda. No one wants to be on a rambling, unproductive sales call. Outline 2-3 key points you want to cover and get straight to the point.
- Practice active listening. It‘s easy for sales calls to become one-sided, with the seller doing all the talking. Aim for your buyer to be speaking for at least 60% of the call.
- Don‘t be afraid to deviate from the script. While call scripts can be helpful for keeping you on track, don‘t let them prevent you from going deeper on topics the buyer seems interested in.
Here‘s an example of a voicemail script that provides value and makes a clear ask:
"Hi Michael,
Joe here from ACME Corp. I‘ve been doing some research on the challenges mid-size banks like yours are facing when it comes to fraud detection, and I have an idea for how you could potentially reduce false positives by 30% while speeding up investigations.
I‘d love to share a couple of quick best practices our team has learned from working with similar banks. Would you be open to a 15-minute call this week to discuss? I promise to keep it short and tactical.
You can book some time directly on my calendar here [Meetings link] or just give me a call back at this number. Talk to you soon!"
Social Media Best Practices
While social media may not be the first channel that comes to mind when you think "sales communication", platforms like LinkedIn can be incredibly powerful for building relationships with buyers who are active there. A few things to keep in mind:
- Engage authentically. Leaving generic comments like "great post!" on every article your buyer shares won‘t cut it. Take the time to leave thoughtful, substantive responses that add to the conversation.
- Share content that positions you as a trusted resource. Curating and sharing relevant third-party content, as well as content your own company creates, will help establish your credibility on the topics your buyers care about.
- Aim to transition to a more direct channel like email. Social media is a great starting point for engaging buyers, but you ultimately want to move the conversation to a place where you can communicate more freely, like email or a call.
Here‘s an example of how you could transition from interacting on LinkedIn to email:
[Buyer shares article on top cybersecurity trends for 2024]
Your comment: These are all spot-on trends. One thing I would add is the growing importance of cloud workload protection with so many companies moving to multi-cloud environments. Securing those workloads across AWS, Azure, and GCP is a major challenge for security teams. Would be curious to hear your thoughts on this since it seems adjacent to the remote workforce issues you mentioned. I‘m actually working on a blog post about it – mind if I send you a draft to get your feedback?
[Buyer responds positively and says they‘re open to taking a look]
Your email: Hi Jessica – Thanks so much for being open to reviewing my blog post draft! I‘ve attached it here. Would love any insights you might have on the challenges your team is facing on the cloud workload protection front, and whether these best practices would be feasible to implement. No rush, but if you‘re able to take a look and share any thoughts by EOD Wednesday that would be incredibly helpful as I‘m aiming to publish on Friday. I‘m also happy to set up a quick call to walk through it if that‘s easier. Let me know what works best for you!
A Final Thought: The Balance Between Persistence and Pushiness
As you can see, engaging buyers on their preferred communication channels isn‘t about just doing one or the other. The best sales reps artfully combine phone, email, social, and whatever other channels make sense for their unique buyer.
But there‘s an important caveat here: You have to strike the right balance between persistent and pushy. Respectfully trying different channels to get in touch with a buyer is persistence. Constantly bombarding them with generic, self-serving outreach on every channel is pushy.
As a general rule of thumb, if you‘ve tried a channel 2-3 times and haven‘t gotten a response, it‘s time to either change your approach or move on. Buyers are busy, and if they‘re not responding, it usually means they‘re not interested.
Focus your energy on the buyers who are engaging with you, and continually experiment with different personalization and value-add techniques to improve your response rates over time. With enough persistence, a strong understanding of your buyer‘s objectives, and a commitment to always leading with value, you‘ll be well on your way to sales success.
