Unless you’ve been in a bunker with no Wi-Fi, you might have heard it’s Black Friday week. If you work in retail, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are likely two of the most important days in your calendar. If you work in the B2B arena, you might wonder what this blog has to do with you… Well, Black Friday and the psychology behind its success offer many lessons for B2B telemarketing campaigns and sales methodologies.
We bet you’d love to know how to harness the power of Black Friday to create more B2B sales opportunities…. So we’re going to tell you. Because we’re lovely like that. Here’s the breakdown on how to use Black Friday thinking for B2B sales.
The psychology behind Black Friday can easily be applied to B2B telemarketing campaigns
The psychology behind Black Friday is genius, really. It builds upon a powerful trio of emotional triggers: scarcity, urgency and fear.
These emotional behaviour motivators are hardwired into the human psyche, and they’re the reason your kids won’t go to sleep when you most want to enjoy an evening without them.
It’s about that sense of unrest when you get the feeling there’s something to enjoy, and you might not get to enjoy it. Basically, it’s about FOMO.
The psychological secret of Black Friday is fear of missing out (FOMO)
FOMO is the feeling of premonitory anxiety/regret that if you don’t take an opportunity now, then in the future, you’ll be worse off for it. In sales, FOMO has truly magnificent power when used to create a sense of urgency for almost any business. Although, it is at its most compelling when it relates to products or services that customers already want or need.
FOMO is a magic ingredient in many B2B sales methodologies
Account-based marketing & FOMO are besties
Account-based marketing campaigns are a perfect opportunity to use FOMO to sell, and here’s how they make perfect companions.
ABM is a highly effective way to target high-value accounts. Essentially, you hone in on select accounts, pour your efforts into creating optimum sales conditions, nurture the hell out of them and convert them into high-ticket customers.
FOMO is the heart of a successful ABM campaign, in that it’s all about finding the customers who most want/need your solutions. You identify your powerful customers, know what they want and need, identify others who fit the bill, then create tailored campaigns that speak to those needs, wants, expectations and timescales. Basically, you make prospects feel special, offer them something elusive, exclusive, and then close them with a time limit.
FOMO creates urgency where there are no organic deadlines
You can use lead-scoring techniques to help you use FOMO in B2B account-based marketing campaigns most effectively. So, say, you rank leads on their likelihood of converting based on established need. Then, you demonstrate in tangible ways what it could mean to your prospects if they made their decision today, rather than next month, next year, etc. This way, you can use FOMO to create a sense of urgency that pushes prospects over the line where there’s otherwise no deadline.
How many times have you had a deal that’s just dragged on forever?
The fact they were still engaging with you meant you’d done your job convincing them you had something worthwhile to sell them. Their indecision came from somewhere else. What you needed was to build the sense that they’d regret not saying yes to your offer now. You needed to demonstrate to them what they were missing out on. And fast. Most sales opportunities contain lots of customer indecision, and it’s the salesperson’s job to manage it because as indecision increases, win rates do the opposite.
How B2B telemarketing campaigns can harness the power of FOMO
FOMO can, and does, still have excellent efficacy even when a need isn’t yet pressing. It’s all about doing your own pressing – on pain points. Really sticking your thumbs in there… Yes, it sounds brutal. But no decision-makers were harmed in the writing of this B2B telemarketing playbook.
A bit like the SPIN sales model, which is all based on questioning techniques (Situation questions, Problem questions, Implication questions, Need-payoff questions) – telemarketing is NEVER about pitching and always about questioning.
How to structure B2B telemarketing campaigns for optimum FOMO levels
In a B2B telemarketing campaign, the initial calls are always about discovery. They are intelligence-gathering missions. Our telesales people identify pain points, and then probe deeper to get to the heart of them. Part of this includes finding out what’s already been tried to solve it, so you can use that intelligence to figure out why your solution is different.
Another important element of this intelligence gathering is discovering timings, including finding out when pain points are at their most painful. If you know this, you can use all your resources to nurture this account in the lead-up to this critical point. And, most importantly, scheduling a call at the critical moment. Calling again at this time, when needs are heightened, is a powerful way to create relevance and urgency. And all the FOMO.
Exclusivity is another way to create a sense of FOMO in B2B telemarketing campaigns
We all like to feel special, don’t we? And we all like to feel like we’re getting something someone else doesn’t have. The impact of exclusivity begins with the scarcity principle, going back to where we started with the psychology behind Black Friday. The rarer or more unattainable something is, the more valuable it is.
Along with triggering the scarcity principle, offering something exclusive elicits other psychological rewards – like feeling important. Offering something exclusive or limited in a B2B sales context must fulfil two clear criteria: it must never be BS and it must have obvious customer value.
You can achieve this by setting deadlines for registering for an event or receiving a promotional offer. You can limit quantities for an offer or service, or you can assign qualifying criteria. Like limiting an offer to prospects in a certain industry, or who have a turnover of X amount, or who can rub their tummies and pat their heads simultaneously. The qualifiers will be unique to your business and campaign – but finding a way to create a sense of belonging to a little exclusive club is a great way to build and maintain high perceived value in your offer.
Don’t miss out on building FOMO in your prospects
See what we did there?
What might happen if you had a funnel full of prospects with FOMO on doing business with you? More to the point, what might happen if you never find out? Win more business with us by clicking here to schedule a call.
