The right way to Increase Sales in 2022: 3 Efficient Methods

Sales can be complex. In a world that’s becoming more agile, more connected, and more competitive, you’ve got to put the work in to stand out. 

If you or your business are struggling to hit your sales targets, you’ve come to the right place. This article looks at three effective strategies that the best sales teams don’t want you to know. 

We’ve got tips for your marketing right through to closing to ensure your end-to-end sales cycle is the best it can be. So whether you’re a business owner, sales director, or business development manager, read on to find out how to increase sales in 2022. 

Table Of Contents:

1. Get more qualified leads with a better marketing strategy

A good marketing plan is a foundation for any sale — after all, you can’t sell to a potential customer without getting them in the door first. Getting your name out in front of a significant number of engaged and motivated buyers is a sure-fire way to boost your sales numbers. Here are four ways to level up your marketing strategies.

Find new customers on LinkedIn (or other social media platforms)

Especially in a B2B world, LinkedIn is a fantastic place to discover, prospect, and influence future customers. Like any social media site, the more you contribute to your network, the more likely you will make meaningful connections, so we’d encourage you to build a network through regular posts on your timeline and in groups. You should also know your target market and target audience.

The sales and marketing communities agree, with nearly all experienced B2B content marketers using LinkedIn for content distribution. Since you can target based on company size, job titles, and more, it’s a great way to attract only your ideal customers.

If you want to take your sales to the next level, check out LinkedIn Sales Navigator. These premium tools help you identify leads in your niche, with many options available to create warm introductions for your product or service. This can help you start your sales funnel off right.

Improve your email marketing content

Despite what people may say, email marketing is far from dead. In fact, it’s very much alive if you know what you’re doing! With most professionals spending up to 3.1 hours a day on email, a great way to increase sales is to make your mark in their inbox.

Don’t get left behind — 85% of B2B companies use email marketing as a critical part of their overall strategy.

We recommend turbo-charging your email marketing efforts by taking advantage of beautifully designed email templates. Not only do they impress future customers, but they’re also quick and easy to set up and send. 

Of course, good-looking emails are no good if customers aren’t opening them, so take the time to get customer feedback and learn how to write attention-grabbing headlines to improve your open rate.

Not to mention, email is the most accessible channel to start leveraging sales automation. If you want a head start, you can read our guide on how to create email marketing funnels for your business. That way, you can automatically nurture leads that sign up for a free trial or webinar over time.

Add SEO to your marketing mix

If you’re after a longer-term strategy to increase sales with your marketing, look at search engine optimization (SEO). 74% of marketers said SEO has excellent or good ROI. But why? Buyer intent is highest when searching for specific products or services online, so investing in this digital marketing technique is a no-brainer.

Here are a few basics:

• Do keyword research to find relevant search terms people use to find products or services in your industry.
• Create content targeting those keywords, including the keyword in meta tags and headers.
• Don’t keyword stuff your content — create a high-quality article that covers a wide range of related topics and popular questions (look at Google’s “People Also Ask” section for inspiration).

To create a truly integrated sales and marketing strategy, combine your SEO strategy with your email marketing strategy through an email marketing platform. You can, for example, drive future customers back to your website and re-engage them with your products and services. 

Remarket to existing leads and customers

Many people forget that a great way to increase sales is to focus on increasing the spending of your existing customers. This is called retargeting and helps you close existing leads or even upsell current customers with supplementary products or services. 

To start retargeting:

• Include a tracking pixel on your website or in your app — for example, the Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics.
• Create remarketing strategies based on the pages they visited — for example, one for visitors who bought a product and one for those who just visited a product page.
• You can also set up email retargeting if your platform integrates with tracking tools. 

Remarketing integrates into your other marketing strategies, such as email or social media, and is a great strategy to increase sales. Remember, the higher your customer satisfaction, the lower your customer churn.

2. Land more sales with a smoother sales process

Just like overlooking your current customers, businesses often waste time trying to create a new sales process from scratch. Instead, we think you should look at optimizing what you already have to drive a better end-to-end experience for potential customers.

That way, you can save time and start seeing the reward of your effort in a much shorter time frame.

Optimize your customer relationship management (CRM) system

Over half of salespeople use a CRM system to close more sales. If you want to know why, check out some fantastic CRM stats here.

Most businesses have some form of CRM, but many don’t take full advantage of the functionality. With automation, artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and mobile capabilities, the future of CRM looks strong and will be your ultimate ally. CRM systems help sales teams make better decisions, optimize their time, and identify key sales trends to boost performance.

Here’s how you can take advantage of the full power of modern CRMs:

• Forecast deal value with AI-powered tools and focus on high-value leads.
• Set up automations that ensure a smooth flow of leads throughout your pipeline.
• Assign leads based on areas of expertise and seniority.

Automate your email follow-up

You can take advantage of CRM data to automatically send personalized follow-up emails. It’s a great way to build rapport and ultimately increase sales. 

48% of B2B digital marketing professionals said email marketing was highly effective in driving conversions. If you want to take your sales to the next level, harness the power of marketing automation to speed up your sales processes and spend more time closing deals.

Simplify your pipeline

One of the key ways to increase sales is to speed up your sales process and make it faster, easier, and more straightforward for new and existing customers to keep buying from you. So many sales teams overcomplicate their sales pipeline, turning their customers off with too much noise. 

 You should simplify your sales pipeline to react to customers as quickly as possible.

• Use automation to give customers the information they need without your involvement.
• Remove unnecessary stages and manager approval, and empower your sales reps to make decisions with clear price ranges and examples.
• Automatically assign the right lead to the right sales rep from day one using criteria like business size, industry, and more.

Digitize your whole customer experience

The wraparound to all of this is to digitize your sales pipeline wherever you can. This forms part of a broader digital transformation strategy where the best sales teams leverage digital technology to increase sales. After all, 70% of customers say connected processes are fundamental to winning their business.

While we’ve covered CRMs, marketing automation, and search engine ads, you should explore chatbots, social media support, and sales engagement platforms to wow your customers with a slick and cohesive digital experience.

Here are some keys to success:

• Integrate sales and support into the same platform.
• Train all team members to effectively use the tools so they can identify previous interactions.
• Recruit “evangelists” to help you improve adoption rates within teams and departments.

3. Close more deals with better selling techniques

We’ve already covered high-level strategies like marketing and pipeline management, but the final ingredient in landing more sales is to make your sales reps sell more efficiently. You can do this by implementing new techniques and tools for selling.

Adopt a consultative selling approach

Consultative selling has become one of the pivotal techniques in a salesperson’s arsenal. Rather than opting for your traditional hard-sell techniques, consultative selling prioritizes customer relationships to identify and deliver solutions that meet the customer’s needs. 

Top-producing B2B salespeople speak less than half of the time, allowing the prospect to talk more.

With so much information available to anyone on the web nowadays, you must balance active listening and engaging insight to close the deal and be the best salesperson.

• Train your reps to listen more.
• Reposition your sales team with “growth consultant” or similar outward-facing titles.
• Adjust your pipeline with custom proposals and other steps to make potential clients feel heard.

Practice overcoming objections

In sales, you’ll hear the word ‘no’ a lot. If you’re wondering how to increase sales, you need to get comfortable with overcoming common sales objections while balancing resilience and professionalism. 

Whether your prospective customers quibble on the price, question the service quality, or simply go for a stalling tactic, do your research on common objections and find ways to move through them to get to the sale.

To help your teams overcome each “no,” do this:

• Interview existing customers about their concerns before purchasing and how your product helped alleviate them.
• Compile a list of relevant case studies that address common concerns effectively.
• Create scripts that encourage listening and empathy, not just pushy selling.

Want to help your team land even more deals? Read our curated list of sales productivity tips.

Set benchmarks and measure your results

When you’re trying to optimize something, you must have a baseline and a way to measure progress. That’s why you need to get comfortable with your deal analytics. Take the time to understand the types of leads you’re closing versus those getting away.

Your CRM is your best bet at tracking and analyzing this data, helping you uncover your win probability for each prospect early on. This allows you to work smarter and prioritize your efforts on the things that help to increase sales.

For example, with ActiveCampaign’s Deals CRM, you can view a custom deals forecast report and use it as a benchmark. It’s based on historical data, so your new adjustments are working if you can consistently outperform it.

Make customer experience your top priority

Putting your customer at the center of your closing process is the best way to prioritize their needs and improve your chances of increasing sales. This means making sure that in every customer interaction, you are: 

• Taking time to understand the customer’s perspective
• Looking for ways to solve their problems
• Listening more than you’re talking
• Providing knowledge and insight on potential solutions

Concentrate on these while prioritizing excellent customer service, and there’s no doubt you’ll see your close rate improve and boost your customer loyalty. It’s one of our top tips for growing your business. After all, the saying ‘people buy from people they trust’ has never been more true in sales than it is today.

Supercharge your sales team with powerful sales automation software

Sales is a very competitive field, so you need to be creative to get ahead when it comes to increasing sales numbers. 

The best way to wow customers in 2022 is to leverage digital technology across your marketing, sales cycle, and post-sales follow-up. We’d recommend starting your journey with sales automation software, helping you speed up and optimize your end-to-end process.
Interested in how ActiveCampaign does it? Check out what our Sales CRM with powerful automations has to offer. Speed up your sales pipeline, integrate automated emails into your processes, and get ahead of your competition.