Nowadays, B2B marketers are leaning increasingly towards a hybrid sales model that combines in-person meetings with online follow-ups through chat, email, and other channels. As per McKinsey’s report hybrid selling is expected to become the most preferred B2B sales strategy in 2024. This is hardly surprising, considering that hybrid sales models can generate up to 50% higher revenue through wider reach and deeper customer interactions. But, when a company decides to transition into a hybrid sales model, it faces a number of challenges.
One of the major challenges is the shift from a traditional sales and marketing approach to a digital sales and marketing approach, where the shift focuses towards self-service and digital buying experiences, making traditional sales methods increasingly obsolete.
The next challenge for businesses is to set themselves apart from competitors and generate top-notch leads by avoiding ineffective product sales and poor responses from potential customers.
Another major challenge for the sales and marketing team while showcasing their product, is location. At times, the location of team members can have an impact on the coordination of sales activities, especially when trying to integrate remote and in-person interactions seamlessly. Diverse time zones, cultural differences, and logistical challenges can hamper the capacity to provide uniform messaging and customer experiences across different touchpoints which impacts the overall effectiveness of product demonstrations and sales presentations. Some products, particularly those needing constant onsite supervision or needing a quick trial, can also find it difficult to successfully adopt the hybrid sales model.
Since this can be seen as a rising challenge for most of the sales and product marketing teams, here are a few product marketing tools that can ensure a hassle-free experience for you and your customers.
Product Marketing Tool #1 - Chatbots
The top priority for every business is to find ways to enhance customer journeys because it becomes essential to boost customer satisfaction and build a solid foundation for enduring customer loyalty. With increasing online interactions, especially on business websites, it becomes crucial for companies to be available round the clock to help customers with the information they need. But sometimes, there may not be customer representatives available to address all inquiries. This is where chatbots come in to solve the issue.
Research by Gartner shows that AI technologies are expected to save 6.2 billion hours of labor productivity globally. Hence, this has also increased customer expectations regarding quick assistance whenever and wherever required.
AI chatbots are available round the clock, providing valuable insights into customer engagement and their purchasing patterns. These AI-driven tools provide prompt answers to customer inquiries, provide important business statistics and deliver tailored information, eliminating the necessity for multiple logins and navigating through intricate systems.
Companies have also started incorporating generative AI for chatbots leveraging advanced technology to enhance customer interactions. This enables businesses to offer human-sounding conversations, prompt responses, and 24/7 customer availability. Gen AI can also further assist chatbots in understanding support articles, responding naturally to FAQs, and managing longer interactions effectively.
Product Marketing Tool #2 - 3D Product Demos
3D product technology has advanced to the extent that people if they want to, can now sit at the coffee table and understand the intricacies of a coffee vending machine. That is exactly what these demos provide — convenience and improved understanding.
3D product demos have undoubtedly revolutionized the marketing landscape, especially in the current times. These demos are more than simply attention-grabbing marketing tools since they offer highly interactive and immersive experiences, where customers can examine products thoroughly, zoom in for detailed views, click-to-explore functionalities, and interact with special product features which help them gain a complete understanding of product features and functions.
Additionally, it enhances brand credibility with your customers by providing solid evidence of how your product works, even in a virtual environment. Once you give your customers tangible proof of what you are saying, it builds trust for both – your company and the product you are offering. Another reason why B2B companies are leveraging 3D product demos is because of their ability to overcome geographical constraints and also can be easily shared and navigated remotely.
Product Marketing Tool #3 - Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality (AR) also offers significant benefits to product marketers as it enhances the research and development process, making it more efficient. Reportedly, 57% of buyers are likely to purchase from a brand that offers AR experiences.
AR enables a “try before you buy” experience which enables customers to see products in real-world scenarios, helping them understand how products look in their surroundings, virtually try on fitting a particular product in a space, or even immediately experiment with the product design. This eliminates the necessity of physically showcasing products to customers for clearer understanding, ultimately saving time and effort. It also helps customers understand the features, size, and suitability of the product, which reduces the likelihood of product returns and increases customer satisfaction.
Marketers can also showcase products in development, personalized recommendations and collect valuable feedback without physically being present using virtual showrooms. This boosts sales by addressing customer needs accurately and enables engaging marketing campaigns in a hybrid sales environment.
Product Marketing Tool #4 - Customer Data Platforms
Now that we have covered the majority of the tools separately, a CDP is a tool that consolidates all your sales and marketing information as a whole. This tool is best for gathering customer databases, merged from different sources including customer events, transactions, customer characteristics, campaign assessments, and customer-company interactions, allowing businesses to create unified customer profiles that can be used by other systems as well.
CDP gathers this data using automated data consolidation which helps businesses access accurate and unified customer insights for data analysis, modeling, and coordinating customer journeys across all channels and also uses predictive analytics to predict which products, offers, content, and target audiences will most likely result in the best possible outcomes.
Additionally, CDP gives businesses the ability to manage and control where customer data resides, especially regarding personally identifiable information (PII). These PIIs are then stored on the company’s server while the non-PII data is securely shared with CDP vendors through tokenization techniques like encryption. This way CDPs help businesses address concerns about data privacy and security while operating within a hybrid sales model which makes it a perfect choice for businesses aiming to improve customer experience and boost sales.
Conclusion
As sales and product marketing teams adjust and adapt to the challenges and opportunities of a hybrid work model, it becomes crucial for them to choose the right product marketing tools that align with their marketing objectives and also ensure smooth communication, collaboration, productivity, and customer engagement. By integrating tools such as chatbots, 3D product demos, AR, visual analytics and CDP, teams can seamlessly adjust to their workplace requirements and also overcome challenges, boost efficiency, and achieve outstanding results in the ever-changing business landscape.
