The right offer at the right time increases your chances of doing business. But when is the right opportunity? There are indicators that show this, called sales triggers. Those who can identify these early on have the competitive edge. Find out here which buyer signals are important for B2B marketing.
What is a sales trigger?
There are numerous types of sales triggers. Some are the result of economic circumstances, others of the development in the industry, and yet others of a company’s individual situation. What they all have in common, though: sales triggers signalise to the B2B salesforce that there is a moment which is or can be perfect for closing a deal. Which is why it is important to be able to interpret these triggers. They help you to offer products or services to a potential B2B customer precisely when they need it.
These are triggering moments in B2B sales
The best offer is not worth much if it does not meet a demand. But which sales triggers actually show that a product or service is in demand? Here are five moments:
- When companies change offices or erect a new building, they often need support for the move and in purchasing new furniture, equipment, IT technology, office supplies and more.
- New personnel, particularly on the management level, or a strategy change offer a good opportunity to get in touch. It can serve as a reason for starting up new relations with a B2B customer or reinforcing existing ones. What’s more, new people are often willing to change processes and perform transactions. A perfectly timed talk can serve as the basis for future business.
- Boosts in profits frequently result in a higher willingness to make purchases, as revenues are often quickly invested, especially due to tax reasons.
- Losses can also be a sales trigger, as the affected organisations potentially have a need for support. For instance, in terms of capital, consultancy or software.
- If a company is participating in an event or organising one itself (trade fair, anniversary, etc.), it most likely has an increased need for event technology, business cards or promotional items and videos.
Additional, feasible sales triggers are the announcement of new products, of takeovers and financing, or the tapping in of new sales markets, all of which can facilitate the need for certain products and services.
How to identify sales triggers in good time
If you want to leverage sales triggers, you have to know about them. And as soon as possible in order to be able to react quickly to the expected demand with an offer. The relevant information can usually be found from publicly accessible sources. These include:
- Social media channels: Today, it is a matter of course that companies make announcements via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, and these announcements may include sales triggers.
- Google messages: Users can choose to be informed when their predefined search term is mentioned on the Internet. They then receive an email as soon as the name of the company, for instance, that they are interested in appears in the news.
- Industry newsletters: The overview of industry news can sometimes be the best indicator for sales triggers. For this reason, subscriptions to newsletters can be helpful, as they regularly share such information.
- Email tracking: With this function, you can track whether recipients have opened an email or not. These can be potential customers.
Good sources of information are also job ads, company websites, blogs, commercial registers and databanks. The manual search for sales triggers is, in light of the massive number of possibilities, very time consuming. Special search programmes can take over this task and automatically analyse news to filter out the relevant sales triggers.
