4 Ways to Master Omnichannel Selling

the stage when the salesperson will make a call or put an opportunity into the pipeline. "Eight to twelve is a lot," Ramos notes. "They tend to happen over a number of channels, and traditionally those have been physical: advertising, trade shows, sponsorships, Web site, email. More recently, in the past five years, is the explosion in all the social channels." As marketing and advertising technology converge, it's easier to market to these anonymous customers, appearing on their Facebook feed or as they browse the Web.

Bizo and Demandbase both provide business-to-business (B2B) digital advertising to clients, helping drive business decision-makers to their Web sites and customizing content according to the buyer.

Demandbase's product can also observe prospects' Web activity, providing more transparency into the sales process. For example, based on where a prospect is in the sales pipeline, a salesperson might believe there's an 80 percent likelihood that a deal will close. However, if the prospect hasn't visited the company's Web site in 60 days, it's unlikely the deal will actually close, Demandbase Chief Executive Officer Chris Golec says. Conversely, if there's a high amount of Web traffic from a company that the sales team hasn't even contacted yet, that can be a cue for someone to reach out and start a conversation.

Web analytics is only the beginning. Salespeople can also glean insights from their interactions with clients over email or through Web-based customer portals, which can contain everything from slide show decks to videos to contracts. For B2B deals where there are multiple decision-makers, these customer portals can easily be shared as others within the organization are brought into the buying process. They can also help salespeople time their communication. "Sometimes a customer goes dark for a few weeks, and you can't get them on the phone or via email. You can wait for that movement or view in the portal, and then go and track them down," House offers as an example.

The same tracking works for email. Add-ons such as Yesware or HubSpot Signals show when prospects have opened emails. Once a salesperson sees a person has viewed an email, for example, he might initiate a conversation in another channel, giving the prospect a call to follow up. Observing customers' movements across channels and using that information to time their experience or personalize the content is the new frontier. B2B salespeople and marketers who harness that information and use it in an organized, process-oriented way will reap the rewards.

Lesson 3: Jump into the Social Conversation

Social media is a large ecosystem with plenty of niches where businesspeople gather to discuss products, ideas, and companies. Professional social networks such as LinkedIn can provide valuable data about a prospect, and its industry groups can serve as fishing holes for enterprising salespeople.

Social listening tools such as Salesforce.com's Radian6 and HootSuite enable companies to monitor what people are saying about their brand and understand what topics are generating the most conversation. But translating social media into sales can be trickier. Companies using social media as a place to have a one-to-one conversation with their customers must listen and respond. The trick is knowing when to use each approach.

GetSatisfaction helps companies create user communities where people can talk about their products. The conversation threads can center on problem-solving, comparing one company to another, and more. That makes community boards a valuable place for 

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• 3CLogic. Inc