Small and medium businesses (SMBs) often face challenges when competing against larger organizations. With smaller budgets and fewer hands on deck, they may come across challenges like:
- Minimal brand awareness
- Stretched teams and resources
- Niche customer bases
It can be hard to find the right balance between executing day-to-day operations and implementing strategic marketing initiatives that drive business growth.
As technology — particularly AI — continues to advance, it presents a unique opportunity for SMBs to level the playing field.
Leveraging AI and Other Tools to Work Smarter, Not Harder
Identify the Right Target Customers
Big companies can afford to blanket the media landscape with omnipresent ads that hit nearly every conceivable demographic. SMBs don’t have that luxury. Every ad dollar needs to be laser-targeted to produce ROI as quickly as possible.
Modern sales and advertising platforms have made it possible to not only identify the types of businesses that are most likely to buy from you — but to also understand which potential customers are ready to buy now.
Building your Ideal Customer Profile
To effectively identify customers, it’s important to understand who’d benefit most from your product and define your ideal customer profile (ICP). This should include firmographic considerations like company size, location, industry, revenue, and customer base. Once you have a clear picture of your ICP, you can go a level deeper into their needs, pain points, and priorities to help tailor your sales approach.
Using a sales intelligence tool like 6sense provides an easy way to quickly parse companies according to firmographic and technographic details so you can build a target account list that fits your ICP. Then, you can focus resources on those prospects.
Focusing Time and Money on the 10% Ready to Buy
According to 6sense Research, only about 10% of most sellers’ Total Addressable Market is ready to buy in any given quarter. Buying signals captured and analyzed by AI can help you spot which accounts are in-market, and deserve most of your short time attention and ad dollars.
Refine Your Sales Pitch
Intent data is a key type of buying signal that can help sellers understand the specific needs and concerns of their target accounts.
For instance, if you sell brake pads, and you see that an account is researching topics like “faster braking,” “improved auto safety,” and “durable brakes,” then you have a pretty strong signal that they are interested in ways to improve vehicle braking performance. Their intent signals are basically giving you conversation starters for your marketing and sales pitches.
Buying signals can also help you pinpoint which buying personas within an account are doing the research. Is it a safety engineer? A CFO? A supply chain manager? Each persona will have its own set of concerns that should be considered when entering a conversation or designing an ad campaign designed to target that prospect.
Build Relationships
B2B sales often rely on building strong relationships with decision-makers — and as a smaller business, you can use these personal relationships as a key differentiator. Attending industry events and networking with other businesses allows salespeople to develop connections and create a positive impression.
Leveraging social media platforms like LinkedIn can also help you connect with decision makers. But as wonderful as tools like LinkedIn are, it’s important to have more than one way to reach your target audience.
You can also use tools like Revenue AI for Sales to acquire contact data and quickly identify buying teams within target accounts. You can enroll these individual contacts into campaigns tailored to their persona. The more people from an account you can get engaged, the more likely you are to win their business.
Monitor Customer Churn
For SMBs to remain competitive, they’ve got to keep an eye out for customer churn. Using intent data tools can help you recognize when existing customers are exploring additional services or researching competitors — enabling you to take proactive steps to retain them. AI-driven analytics can also be used to identify patterns in customer behavior and provide insight into how to best engage customers and keep them loyal.
Leverage Content Marketing
Content marketing is an effective way for SMBs to stay competitive. By creating valuable content such as blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, or webinars, SMBs can position themselves as an authority in their field.
AI-powered sales platforms help to understand what topics prospects are researching — then deliver content that matches their interests. This helps SMBs target potential customers with relevant information about industry trends, challenges, and solutions they’re likely to be interested in.
Sellers can also use AI to predict a prospect’s buying stage based on their level of engagement with different pieces of content. Then, the AI can recommend tailored messaging depending on where the prospect is in their buying journey. For example, if a prospect is still gathering information and not ready to decide, you will want to provide helpful resources like educational emails or webinars that guide them through the process.
Streamline the Sales Process
Maximizing efficiency across the sales process is an essential way for SMBs to stay nimble and increase success. Start by paring down the process as much as possible, removing any steps that are unnecessary or require too much manual effort. Automate functions where possible to offload repetitive tasks and accurately track prospect interactions.
Sales intelligence software can automate activities like prospecting, lead qualification, data analysis, and more while offering valuable insights into customer behavior.
Using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool can also help to track account engagement across multiple channels while managing data. CRMs let users track leads through the pipeline, measure team performance against goals, and identify areas of improvement in the sales cycle.
Provide Social Proof
Collect social proof — like testimonials, case studies, and success stories — to demonstrate your credibility and the positive impact of your products or services. Focus on stories that showcase use cases and benefits of your solution. Share these on your website, social media platforms, and sales collateral.
Embrace Technology
Using technology like sales automation, customer analytics, and data-driven insights frees up time by simplifying processes for:
- Gathering and organizing data
- Identifying trends
- Personalizing interactions
- Optimizing sales strategies
The time saved on these efforts can be reallocated toward crafting the best experience possible for customers and prospects.
Collaborate With Partners
Explore partnership opportunities with complementary businesses that target similar B2B customers. Partnership can expand your reach, enhance your value proposition, and lead to mutually beneficial deals. By leveraging these partnerships, SMBs can gain access to new customer segments and gain visibility into how larger enterprises are managing their operations.
Invest in Training and Development
Providing employees with ongoing learning opportunities will keep them current on industry trends, customer needs, and new technologies. Structured onboarding programs can provide the necessary training for employees to excel in their new role while coaching and mentorship offers access to the latest strategies used by other professionals in the field.
RevCity is a great — and free! — place to start with your training initiative. RevCity hosts an extensive library of training materials such as webinars, videos, ebooks, and courses, as well as an online community of experts who offer advice on how best to succeed while running lean operations.
Conclusion
SMB revenue teams need not be discouraged when going up against their larger competitors. While enterprises may be stacked with expanded employee bases and fuller pockets, SMBs can use AI and other technologies to drive creativity, efficiency, and innovation.
