2020 and 2021 were the years that baffled all of us. It was like playing a B2B sales outreach card game.

You are sitting in the darkroom, at the round green table. Across from it, there is your competitor, sweating just as much, trying to keep a straight face. Prize? Leads. A handful of them. Card after card, it appears you have rotten luck. As your coin pile gets smaller, you wonder how you can make a fortune smile at you.

If you missed your opportunity to keep up with the market changes in 2021, here comes another chance. Let’s go through the key tips that can be your aces in a sleeve to stay on top of your B2B Sales outreach game.

How has B2B sales changed over time?

In the past, the B2B sales process was pretty simple. A company would recognize the need, identify a solution through Word of Mouth, and contact one or more providers. After a couple of meetings, the deal would be made.

But in recent years and globalization dramatically entering through the big door and competition getting wider, the providers were left riddled about which approach to use to get a bigger piece of the market cake. A vast number of opportunities opened up: the importance of the company’s content, review websites, social media, or paid ads all flooded the world, which made jobs harder not only for the providers but for clients, as well.

Overwhelmed, clients were getting more suspicious of services’ credibility that they decided to do the research themselves. This ultimately decreased SDR’s opportunity to influence the client's decision.

According to TrustRadius, 78% of B2B buyers are spending equal or more time researching the product or service by themselves.

Outcome and changes

Consequently, the idea of sales and marketing merging and working together became a priority task for the companies and ultimate sales strategy. 

Another considerable change that globalization and 2020 events brought to the table is the importance of remote communication itself, thus online meeting software usage, such as Zoom or Google Meet skyrocketed. This made it easier for clients to meet with providers without wasting time. 

On the other hand, providers finally got the chance to improve their conversion tracking, but the sales team had the new challenge at hand: improving presentation skills for online time-limited meetings to listen to pain points, showcase personalized benefits and install confidence and expertise in prospects.

So with the new 2022 just getting started, we have yet to see the new B2B sales trends develop. Alas, due to recent changes, some ways to master your sales outreach are here to stay, so let’s get through all of them.

#1 Social selling in B2B sales outreach: The new normal

Assertive selling methods are long out of the picture, thanks to Social Selling. As a new way of the sales strategy, social selling requires narrowing down the niche prospects and developing relationships first, before leading them further down the sales funnel. Developing the relationship will allow you to place the idea into your prospects’ heads and nurture it throughout the buying experience steps. 

Today Social selling often takes place via social media channels such as LinkedIn. For example, LinkedIn established a Social Selling Index in which users with higher SSI are better positioned to make new lead connections, and therefore more likely to succeed in closing the deal. Consequently, many SDRs' main mission was to improve their Social Selling Index (LinkedIn SSI score).

Social selling is a delicate business, and it took sales teams a while to wrap their heads around it. As time passed by, it proved to be effective, so in 2022 social selling is a must for your sales strategy to stay on top.

#2 Understand where your leads came from

It’s 2022, and it is high time to step up your lead organization game. This is where CRM comes in handy. By inserting all the lead information in one place, you will be able to categorize them later on, depending on where they came from. Why? Because the way you engage with them should be different based on where they originated from to personalize their buying experience. 

There are no one-size-fits-all categorizations, but the ones that we found useful are: 

1. Hand raisers

Hand Raisers are the leads that have reached out to support or schedule a demo via the website. They already know who you are and are halfway to the conversion, which makes your sales approach easier. 

2. Custom leads list

Custom leads were found and added to the system manually by an SDR. These leads can be sourced from personal connections on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator Search, or scraped elsewhere online. With this categorization, you can narrow it further by industry, pain point, and so on to further personalize your cold outreach.

3. Educatees

Educatees are the prospects who downloaded some sort of educational material from your website or signed up for a webinar and left contact information for it. Extra attention is needed here as not all of them are your niche leads, so you need to segment them carefully.

4. Lead warmth

One of the simplest ways to categorize your leads is by warmth. Some may be further down the sales funnel than others, and some might not have that much interest as others.

• Cold Lead - Prospects that are right at the beginning of the sales funnel or have little to no interest in engaging with SDRs. 

• Warm Lead - Warm leads have expressed some interest in speaking to or needing your company by perhaps contacting customer support via chat or contacting you via Social Media channels. Alas they are not ready for a conversation with an SDR. This lead will typically need a nurturing campaign or direct assistance to move further down the funnel. 

• Hot Lead - These leads explicitly said they’re ready to speak to your company or are asking a lot of questions to support this claim.

The good thing about categorization is that you can use one system or combine them to further personalize your approach. All in all, with lead categorization and labeling, you’ll be able to track your KPIs better, understand your LinkedIn lead generation activities, what leads to lead conversion and know what works best and where you should change your approach.

#3 Use video format

As what feels like an everlasting trend, video format continues to amaze with its effectiveness in 2021, not only in marketing but also as a sales strategy. So in 2022, leverage video and step away from long texts to demonstrate the value of your product or service. 

According to Wyzowl’s research, 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

A brief video can show prospects how the product is used, showcase benefits, short reviews, and set the tone for your sales pitch better than a text format. Incorporating videos into your B2B sales will increase engagement and lead to more sales.

Current trends show that animated explainer videos are a perfect way to demonstrate your product or service, features, and benefits. What’s great about the video format is that it can be used at all stages of the sales funnel.

In addition, videos help the B2B prospect to organically conclude that your product suits them best on their own. It builds trust, especially in cold leads, and fosters further education.

#4 Build trust through education

The world has changed. As we mentioned, it's important that you nurture relationships and build trust with your leads, and one of the great ways to do that is through education.

Think about the content the marketing team produces. Mark them for the sales strategy, and use blogs, webinars, whitepapers, or videos to help educate your prospect on what your organization offers.

Remember when we talked about Social Selling? This is one way to do it. If you help to educate them first, guide them towards your solution, and enable them to make their own decisions, they will begin to trust you. Once you gain the trust, you will nurture a relationship to conversion with more ease.

To get the most out of your educational outreach, personalize it further. Instead of sending an entire blog or webinar by itself, take a quote from them, and send them a linked snippet. Trust us, they will be grateful, and the percentage of objections will be by far decreased.

#5 Update the B2B sales outreach process

In recent years, one of the most popular business mantras you could find was to work smarter, not harder. This meant finding alternative ways to simplify the process while getting the best of it and easily scaling it up. This formula was to be applied to the B2B sales process, as well.

But how were people able to do it? What is their Sales strategy? They implemented sales engagement tools. 

With the rise of LinkedIn as the most effective way to find B2B leads, along came various tools to help your LinkedIn outreach out, so you can invest the time in more important matters, such as nurturing your leads to conversion. It allows your sales creativity to bloom, delegates and routine tasks to the software itself.

How to master your sales outreach with it?

1. Multichannel approach:

Some sales engagement tools allow you to use a multichannel approach. This means that several channels are working in synchronicity to maximize sales efficiency. Therefore, you can reach your prospects via multiple channels, such as LinkedIn and email. After all, the multichannel approach does bring the best results to the table.

2. Sequences:

If the Multichannel approach is a strategy, then sequences can be the means by which you achieve it. Smart sequences are the future of lead generation, as you can combine different actions in one campaign, define the time delay between them, and send it out to the prospect. The tool will follow the steps and send out outreach you’ve prepared, so you need not worry if some steps slipped between the cracks. 

3. Personalization at scale:

Another trend in the B2B sales process became personalization. You need to get as personal as you can with your leads, mentioning their name, interest or company to develop a relationship, show that you care for them, and wish to solve their issue. Naturally, sales engagement tools became a smarter and easier choice to personalize your cold outreach at scale. 

To quote Daft Punk with the twist:

“Work it smarter, make it better, do it faster, make it stronger.”

In conclusion

B2B sales outreach is ever-changing, and it always will be. That is why you need to stay on top of trends and best practices to stay in the game.

There are still many paths to follow to master your B2B sales outreach, but the core ones are:

• Update The Sales Process
• Improve Social Selling
• Understand Where Your Leads Came From
• Use Video Format
• Build Trust Through Education

You don’t have to implement every tip that we mentioned. Choose the one, A/B test it, and then apply which one works best for you. Own it, win it!

Let’s win 2022 together! Check out Skylead, a LinkedIn Automation & Cold Email Software that thinks for you and try it out for free.

White Label refers to fully supported products or services made by one company but sold by another. 

The seller then customizes it with their brand, logo, and identity. This way, it makes the customers associate the product with the seller instead of with the company that originally made it. 

It is a win-win situation for both parties. Companies from which the product originates earn quite a sum from their white label partners, whereas the sellers offer the same products for more money with fewer expenses of production and maintenance. 

Already by hearing this, it is clear that white labeling a product has more pros than cons for both sides. 

However, let’s go ahead and go in-depth about the advantages for those who choose to white label. 

You Get The Luxury of Choice 

Whatever the product or service you want to white label, there are for sure plenty of options out there. Yours is only to do the thorough research and decide which one will suit your and your client’s needs best, and therefore sell well. Instead of wasting time creating a single product that, at the end of the day, might not even be as developed and successful as some of the ones on the market, just pick the one that has all the right features for you. 

However, choose smart. You want the third-party product to make your brand look even better. If something is not working, your clients will associate poor service with you, not with the company of origin. 

It Saves You Time & Money 

Anyone who has ever developed something from scratch knows how much effort is required to create a quality, functional product. It takes time, investment, knowledge, and later on the constant support and improvement to keep the product at a certain level. Of course, on the condition that it works! You have no guarantee of ROI. 

If you white label a product, all of these are already taken care of. And as the product develops, so does your version. 

This directly implies our third benefit. 

White Labeling Allows You To Take Advantage of Expert Work

It might sound awful, but it’s true. You will not be the one paying high-end developers who need to envision it, realize it, and then fix all the bugs. Yes, in a way you will be contributing through the price you agreed upon with the company of origin, but for sure you will not be having as many headaches as they do. They are the ones who need to take care of all the aspects that make one product unique and fully functional. Not only. It is on them to make the product go through beta tests, revisions, troubleshooting, and other fine-tuning processes. 

You just need to sit back and enjoy their quality work under your name. 

It Takes The Pressure Off 

If something goes wrong, in the majority of cases, the third-party tool owners will most likely be the ones solving the problem. Not only do they usually offer the service of Customer Support even for the white labeled version, but are fixing actual bugs and malfunctions in the product itself. Your job is only to handle the clients. 

However, when mistakes do happen, take into account that there is always room for a genuine human error. It is easier to blame someone else when something similar could have happened to you too, if you were the company of origin. Don’t let it become a bad partnership. 

White Labeling Increases The Customer Loyalty 

Introducing a new service that is already well-developed (by someone else, even better!) and functioning will offer your existing customers something to become even more attached to you. You will now be most likely handling several aspects of their business. 

Yours it’s only to make sure that the product you white label is reliable. 

It Attracts New Customers 

Once you start offering a new product or service, it will for sure attract new customers. It actually might not even be a bad idea to provide the service to clients who are interested only in that product, just to test it out without risking losing any of the existing clients due to poor satisfaction. In a way, it’s a win-win situation. If they like it, the new clients might expand their demand to other aspects of your business. If not, you will still have your old customers and know how to do things better for them.

White Labeling Skylead 

If you've ever thought of incorporating outreach into your Lead Generation Agency, or you are doing lead generation on LinkedIn we might have the right tool for you. 

Skylead is an all-in-one LinkedIn Automation & Cold Email Software that provides you with everything you need without having to involve any third-party tools. 

What does that mean? 

To begin with, Skylead does LinkedIn automation from a LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and Recruiter search, by importing leads through a CSV file, or it can target leads who reacted to a certain LinkedIn post ("Post-Engagement Campaign"). In other words, Skylead automates LinkedIn prospecting.

Furthermore, Skylead has an Email Discovery & Verification feature that finds your leads’ business emails even without being connected on LinkedIn. This allows you to do a cold email campaign or to combine an Email with a LinkedIn Outreach. 

The third option at your disposal is reaching out to your leads’ via their publicly available emails on LinkedIn, collected by Skylead. 

As you may see, Skylead is at the same time an Automation Tool, Email Finder, and Scraping Tool for as low as $100 per month per account. 

This is not all. 

Currently, Skylead is the only tool on the market that has Smart Sequences, groundbreaking algorithms that allow you to use multichannel outreach and personalization to their maximum potential. 

You can create scenarios based on your leads’ behavior and combine LinkedIn Messages, LinkedIn InMails, and Emails, with other LinkedIn features such as View, Follow, Invite to Connect, and in this way create the highest number of paths to your prospects. 

Whatcha waiting for? 

Find out more about all the benefits of white labeling Skylead by scheduling a demo call with our specialist. 

We look forward to explaining all the perks you’ll get by partnering up with us! 

Skylead’s Smart Sequences are groundbreaking algorithms that allow you to use multichannel outreach and personalization to its maximum potential. 

Following the trends of LinkedIn’s newest restrictions and changes in their policy and with Lead Generation moving to other channels (such as Email for example), Skylead’s Smart Sequences are undoubtedly the most innovative and exhaustive path to reaching your Prospects and increasing conversion rate. 

Not only. 

Due to the previously mentioned LinkedIn restrictions, Smart Sequences are actually the only effective way of generating and nurturing Leads. They combine LinkedIn features (LinkedIn InMails, Connection Requests, Messages, Follow) with Emails (found and verified by Skylead) and create the highest possible number of personalized touchpoints with your Prospects. 

As you may see, Smart Sequences bring the Lead Engagement Process to a whole new level. 

Possibilities. Yes. So many possibilities! 

Before introducing Smart Sequences, your options were, more or less, limited to predefined threads. 

Now you have the possibility to combine the same features and operations you had before (and some new ones) in an unimaginable number of ways. That means using the potential of every channel to its maximum, within the safe limit range.

While the old predefined threads are still available, now you have the option of making an entire branch of steps and operations the way you think it will work best for your business goals. 

Consequently, just when you thought your communication cannot get any more humanized, Smart Sequences give you a Super-duper-hyper-personalized outreach! 

Let’s see how it all looks in practice. 

Smart Sequence N1 (The Simple One)

As you may see from the algorithm’s diagram, after the Email Verification step, this Smart Sequence is set up for several options. 

In case Skylead discovers and verifies the Prospect’s Email, we can continue our communication through the email channel. If not, the sequence will proceed with the Connection Request. If the Prospect accepts it, the LinkedIn branch of communication will send a Message, and if not, there is always the option of Following the Lead just as a subtle reminder to our attempt to connect. 

Email Verification Step

Skylead will try to find and verify Business Emails from your list of Prospects BEFORE connecting with them. The success rate varies between 20 to 40% which is 500 to 1000 valid Business Emails from one Sales Navigator Search that generated around 2500 prospects.

Smart Sequence N2 (The Post Engagement Campaign)

NOTE: It has been proven that Post Engagement Campaigns have been extremely successful when it comes to acceptance and response rate (ranging between 75-90%). They are an excellent ice-breaker, as you start your conversation with Prospects with a topic, interest, or connection that you have in common. 

As you may see from the algorithm’s diagram, after the Connection Request, this Smart Sequence is set up for several options. 

The thread will check if the Prospect’s profile is open to Free InMails. If yes, the right branch of our Smart Sequence will proceed in that direction and send InMail #1, and then InMail #2 (a follow-up). 

If not, the Smart Sequence will change its direction and try to discover and verify the Lead’s Email. In case the Prospect’s Email is available, the thread will reach out through this channel. If not, it will just Follow the Lead as a “final” reminder of our attempt to connect.

Smart Sequence N3 (The Complex Sequence)

This Sequence is interesting as it diminishes the need for Connection Requests by using other personalizable channels.

First, the sequence will check if the lead's account is open to InMails (leads you found by prospecting on LinkedIn). If yes, it will continue with this option. Have in mind that with Skylead, you can send up to 800 Free InMails a month. 

Secondly, if the Prospect’s account is not open to InMails, the sequence will proceed with discovering and verifying Emails. Skylead can generate thousands of emails a month just by using information available on Linkedin, which permits so many additional personalized touchpoints with your Leads. 

In case neither Email nor InMail is available, the sequence will proceed with a Connection Request.

Wanna see how easy it is to make a Smart Sequence? 

All you need to do is choose between elements (InMail, Email, Message, etc.) and conditions (If Email Verified, If Open to InMails, etc.) on your right and drag them to your left to create the flow. 

For each element that requires text, you have the option of inserting it immediately and use all of the available tags. You also get to decide how much time you want it to pass between sending that particular InMail, Email, Message and the step before. The same option applies to conditions. 

As simple as this. Take a look. 

Image and GIF Hyper-Personalization Tool

Image and GIF Hyper-personalization tool is a flexible and unique feature that Skylead puts at your disposal. It is perfectly compatible with LinkedIn messages, InMails, and Emails used for building Smart Sequences. 

Image and GIF Hyper-personalization tool works outstandingly when it comes to distinguishing yourself from the competition and creating a surprise factor thanks to its unconventional way of communicating what you have to say. 

Due to its hyper-personalized copy and the visual effect, it is hard that it will leave any of your Leads indifferent. 

Check out more about it here. 

Why Multichannel Outreach? 

Because a Multichannel Outreach increases the response rate by least 17%!

Is that reason not good enough for you or what?!?

Also, not only does it offer a plethora of features such as LinkedIn Messages, LinkedIn InMails, and Emails, but now it gives you the freedom to combine channels, operations, and build your threads. In other words, you are not limited to generating leads on LinkedIn only. So, go wild! 

And don’t be afraid of LinkedIn jail and restriction or that your Emails will finish in your Prospects’ Spam folder. Skylead has your back. We always monitor your campaigns and make sure that they stay within safe limits. 

That’s right! You are safely hyper-humanizing communication with your Leads while being fully protected.