9 tips for closing B2B sales in the post-Covid era
Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2025 7:06 am
Let's imagine a scene. A salesperson from a B2B company welcomes a visitor to their stand at one of the main fairs in their sector in Europe, shakes their hand, has a brief conversation, gives them a brochure and a piece of merchandising, they exchange business cards and arrange a business lunch for a few hours later. In 2019, this would have seemed like a completely normal scene.
In 2020, we would use any adjective to describe this situation except “normal”. Our lives have changed (at least in the short and medium term) and the same is happening with companies and their strategies to close B2B sales in this new post-Covid era.
Just as we will no longer see for a while those B2C salespeople who used to attack us on the street or enter a building to offer certain products or services door to door, the physical sales networks of B2B companies are also suffering from the coronavirus crisis . Business trips, visits to companies and presence at trade fairs and physical events have been reduced to unprecedented levels. This situation will continue for months at best, if there are no new outbreaks and lockdowns. If that was your company's customer acquisition model, you need a new plan.
In industrial marketing and B2B sales, there are no magic solutions for afghanistan phone number list all companies and all sectors, especially in an unprecedented and highly uncertain situation like the one we are experiencing. In any case, we can help you understand what the main trends are in this post-Covid era and what strategies can be best and worst adapted to this situation .
With this, we come to the question we were asking ourselves: what advice should you consider for closing B2B sales in this context? Let's begin.
1. Don't neglect customer retention and cross-selling
We tend to think of sales in terms of new customers, but before focusing on those types of strategies, you should never forget about customer retention and cross -selling strategies .
The current uncertainty is causing sales cycles to become longer and purchasing decisions to be taken more slowly. According to data from HubSpot , collected from more than 70,000 companies, the coronavirus crisis has caused weekly drops in the number of closed deals worldwide of between 10 and 36 percent.
HubSpot Study
In this phase of sales stagnation, it is more important than ever to pay attention to current customers. Even before the coronavirus crisis, studies suggested that retaining an existing customer costs five times less than acquiring a new one .
Not only should you think that satisfied customers attract new customers , which is true, but they also open up sales opportunities through cross-selling strategies , always with solutions that will really help them meet their goals. All employees in your company who are in contact with customers should be able to detect new opportunities to offer related products and services. Of course, without pressure and as long as it makes sense.
2. Recontact old leads
Take advantage of your database of old leads to get back in touch. Whether it's a phone call, a personal email or an email marketing campaign, the key is always to provide value in every interaction , so that your potential clients perceive that you can help them. This doesn't change with the coronavirus crisis, because it's the same thing you should have been doing for a long time.
If you are clear about your leads' needs or the problems they want to solve , it will be easier for them not to perceive that recontact as something annoying or a waste of time. Have you improved the functionality of a product that they are interested in? Are you going to launch a new solution or service for a problem that you know they have? Have you written an article or published an ebook or a study on a topic of interest to their company? Don't send mass mailings to your database . Segment and add value.
3. Turn your website into a sales tool
In practice, many websites function as a simple showcase for products and services, but a corporate website can be a tool that helps generate leads and get clients . We are increasingly searching online to find information before making a purchase that we consider important, and this trend is even more pronounced in the case of B2B buyers.
Creating and distributing the content that your potential customers are looking for (what questions they usually ask, what their needs are, what problems they want to solve, etc.) is the basis of inbound marketing . The idea is to attract users interested in your services to your online environment, accompany them in the sales process with more related information, and encourage them to think about your brand when they are ready to make the purchase decision. All of this with a combination of strategies : content marketing, SEO positioning, conversion and lead generation tools (calls to action, landing pages, forms, etc.), marketing automation , lead nurturing, email marketing, conversational marketing (live chat, chatbots, etc.), social networks… and also a CRM or database that allows you to integrate this information, know what point of the purchasing process the contacts are at, and work with the leads in a segmented and personalized way.
4. Target strategic customers directly
Ask yourself this question and try to make your answer as realistic as possible. If you had to name three companies that you would like to become your customers, who would they be? Most B2B companies have their Moby Dick – those potential customers that they consider to be strategically key to their business, but with whom they do not yet work.
This is where account-based marketing (ABM) comes in . It is a hyper-segmentation strategy in which marketing and sales efforts are combined to directly target a very small group of potential customers as the targets of one or more highly personalized campaigns.
ABM has gained a lot of weight in recent years and makes even more sense at a time when the coronavirus crisis has triggered a trend towards looking for closer suppliers . However, ABM strategies are not for everyone. For example, they do not make much sense in B2C environments and work better to close B2B sales with brands that have a small number of potential customers or for which that target company would be a client of high economic and strategic value.
In 2020, we would use any adjective to describe this situation except “normal”. Our lives have changed (at least in the short and medium term) and the same is happening with companies and their strategies to close B2B sales in this new post-Covid era.
Just as we will no longer see for a while those B2C salespeople who used to attack us on the street or enter a building to offer certain products or services door to door, the physical sales networks of B2B companies are also suffering from the coronavirus crisis . Business trips, visits to companies and presence at trade fairs and physical events have been reduced to unprecedented levels. This situation will continue for months at best, if there are no new outbreaks and lockdowns. If that was your company's customer acquisition model, you need a new plan.
In industrial marketing and B2B sales, there are no magic solutions for afghanistan phone number list all companies and all sectors, especially in an unprecedented and highly uncertain situation like the one we are experiencing. In any case, we can help you understand what the main trends are in this post-Covid era and what strategies can be best and worst adapted to this situation .
With this, we come to the question we were asking ourselves: what advice should you consider for closing B2B sales in this context? Let's begin.
1. Don't neglect customer retention and cross-selling
We tend to think of sales in terms of new customers, but before focusing on those types of strategies, you should never forget about customer retention and cross -selling strategies .
The current uncertainty is causing sales cycles to become longer and purchasing decisions to be taken more slowly. According to data from HubSpot , collected from more than 70,000 companies, the coronavirus crisis has caused weekly drops in the number of closed deals worldwide of between 10 and 36 percent.
HubSpot Study
In this phase of sales stagnation, it is more important than ever to pay attention to current customers. Even before the coronavirus crisis, studies suggested that retaining an existing customer costs five times less than acquiring a new one .
Not only should you think that satisfied customers attract new customers , which is true, but they also open up sales opportunities through cross-selling strategies , always with solutions that will really help them meet their goals. All employees in your company who are in contact with customers should be able to detect new opportunities to offer related products and services. Of course, without pressure and as long as it makes sense.
2. Recontact old leads
Take advantage of your database of old leads to get back in touch. Whether it's a phone call, a personal email or an email marketing campaign, the key is always to provide value in every interaction , so that your potential clients perceive that you can help them. This doesn't change with the coronavirus crisis, because it's the same thing you should have been doing for a long time.
If you are clear about your leads' needs or the problems they want to solve , it will be easier for them not to perceive that recontact as something annoying or a waste of time. Have you improved the functionality of a product that they are interested in? Are you going to launch a new solution or service for a problem that you know they have? Have you written an article or published an ebook or a study on a topic of interest to their company? Don't send mass mailings to your database . Segment and add value.
3. Turn your website into a sales tool
In practice, many websites function as a simple showcase for products and services, but a corporate website can be a tool that helps generate leads and get clients . We are increasingly searching online to find information before making a purchase that we consider important, and this trend is even more pronounced in the case of B2B buyers.
Creating and distributing the content that your potential customers are looking for (what questions they usually ask, what their needs are, what problems they want to solve, etc.) is the basis of inbound marketing . The idea is to attract users interested in your services to your online environment, accompany them in the sales process with more related information, and encourage them to think about your brand when they are ready to make the purchase decision. All of this with a combination of strategies : content marketing, SEO positioning, conversion and lead generation tools (calls to action, landing pages, forms, etc.), marketing automation , lead nurturing, email marketing, conversational marketing (live chat, chatbots, etc.), social networks… and also a CRM or database that allows you to integrate this information, know what point of the purchasing process the contacts are at, and work with the leads in a segmented and personalized way.
4. Target strategic customers directly
Ask yourself this question and try to make your answer as realistic as possible. If you had to name three companies that you would like to become your customers, who would they be? Most B2B companies have their Moby Dick – those potential customers that they consider to be strategically key to their business, but with whom they do not yet work.
This is where account-based marketing (ABM) comes in . It is a hyper-segmentation strategy in which marketing and sales efforts are combined to directly target a very small group of potential customers as the targets of one or more highly personalized campaigns.
ABM has gained a lot of weight in recent years and makes even more sense at a time when the coronavirus crisis has triggered a trend towards looking for closer suppliers . However, ABM strategies are not for everyone. For example, they do not make much sense in B2C environments and work better to close B2B sales with brands that have a small number of potential customers or for which that target company would be a client of high economic and strategic value.