Report: B2B Sales Teams Missing Opportunity to Introduce ‘Unconsidered Needs’

According to a Corporate Visions survey released on Aug. 11, B2B marketers and sales reps are failing to deliver pitches that are believed to differentiate them from the competition and close more deals.

The data shows that approximately 47 percent of respondents’ pitches are not focused on the appropriate messages. Further, just 17 percent said that their pitches are different from the competition. While 41.5 percent believe leading off a sales pitch with an “unconsidered need” or by addressing an opportunity that prospects didn’t know they had could be beneficial, only 14 percent are doing so.

“We’ve found through our own scientific research that introducing an ‘unconsidered need’ first in a sales conversation increases messaging effectiveness and has a positive impact on attitude and choice. Both marketers and salespeople must take this approach to content and conversations if they want to successfully stand out with prospects and customers and increase their sales pipelines,” said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and market officer for Corporate Visions.

The Struggle of Storytelling

A Corporate Visions survey published in January 2015 showed that B2B marketers were already struggling to portray their company message in content. At the time, only half of B2B companies said they expected marketers to consistently convey their values.

About 36 percent of respondents said they did not have a formal message development process, or they had a process, but did not regularly follow it. Twenty-nine percent said that they had a well-established message development process.

Despite these statistics, previous research indicates that marketers aim to improve in this area. The “2015 Marketing Trends Survey” released by StrongView at the end of 2014 showed that 54 percent of companies were set to increase their marketing budgets. This money was to be put toward initiatives, such as improving one-to-one messaging.