Have you ever gone shopping, only to get bombarded by a salesperson as soon as you walk into the store?
You politely say, “I’m just poking around,” and then feel them looming over your shoulder as you look through racks of clothes.
Sure, it’s overwhelming and uncomfortable. But it’s also clear this person isn’t focused on your shopping experience. They’re focused on their quota.
If you’ve ever been a B2B buyer, you’ve likely felt this feeling while looking at new software.
Unpersonalized emails sent one after the other, LinkedIn requests with no context, cold calls from unknown numbers.
It almost feels like you’re prey…and the salesperson is just waiting to pounce.
A lot of B2B buying can feel this way.
And the thing is, today’s buyers crave personalization. 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.
Everyone who comes to your site is a human with needs, challenges, and goals. Not a lead waiting to be pounced upon.
So, how do you scale your messaging and invest in true personalization?
By greeting buyers in the right place, at the right time, with the right conversation ⚡️
If you’re still not convinced, here’s why you should be personalizing (not pouncing with live chat messages), and how to do it today.
Pouncing Isn’t Scalable
We know, we tried it.
A few years ago we were bullish on something called Live View.
Live View is a real-time view of customers and buyers who are actively on your site. You can then proactively reach out to the site visitor through chat, without them having to engage with your bot first.
But we ultimately found that the engagement rate of live view chats was low. Not to mention, it was wasting our sales rep’s time.
Why?
It isn’t scalable to have your sales reps sit in front of their computer waiting for a qualified buyer to get on your site and pounce.
And in today’s economy — with budget cuts, hiring freezes, and layoffs — your sales team’s time is more valuable today than it was yesterday. Pouncing forces them to blindly prospect into accounts without understanding where their prospects are in their buyers’ journey.
Sales reps should be saving their time to do what humans do best — building relationships with the right people.
Now, I know what you might be thinking. Maybe you like the idea of being able to see who is on your site. You like the idea of being able to start conversations with buyers. You like the idea of real-time insights.
Us too! That’s why we’re here to tell you there is a better way to start meaningful conversations with your buyers.
Here’s how to do it.
Real-Time Target Account Notifications
Don’t sit and wait in chat for target accounts to show up.
Instead, let real-time notifications alert you exactly when a prospect interacts with your outreach so you can engage them at their highest intent.
Then, use insight into what page your target account is on and what content they’ve interacted with — and then reach out with a timely, relevant, and personalized message.
Personalization builds trust. In fact, we see a 150% increase in engagement from personalized messages vs. generic ones.
Here’s an example of real-time notifications in action from Lyle, an account executive at Drift 👇
One of Lyle’s target accounts comes to the Drift site after we’d been marketing to them for a few weeks.
Tom (the buyer) drops by to do a little research in between his meetings. Because Lyle gets notifications when his accounts engage with high-intent pages, he immediately receives an alert that Tom is on the site.
Lyle quickly researches Tom’s past engagements, former roles, and previous companies. Armed with these insights, Lyle is ready to help. In seconds, he engages Tom through live chat on the website and books a discovery call for the next day.
This is how Lyle and the rest of our reps fill their calendars — and their pipeline 💰
Keep your efforts focused on prospecting and managing your deals. Then when the time is right, you can be there with the right message. Here’s how.
Turn Insights Into One of a Kind Buying Experiences
Your buyers are complex. Their inboxes are crowded. And these days, it takes anywhere from six to eight decision-makers to make a purchasing decision in a typical B2B sales cycle.
Stand out from the crowd by showing buyers that you’re really listening.
Using Drift Prospector, you can see what pages buyers have visited, what content they’ve consumed, which sales touchpoints they’ve engaged with, and how often they interacted with your brand.
As a seller, that means you can create hyper-personalized emails, videos, and messages that speak to their unique needs.
Let’s break down an example from Wes, one of our account executives👇
Wes sees that Sally has recently downloaded a particular e-book and a few days later she comes back and checks out the pricing page.
So, Wes creates a personalized video for Sally, mentioning the content and web pages she’s engaged with. The video highlights the pain point she may be feeling today — and how Drift can help solve it.
Let’s just say Sally’s interest is piqued. At the same time, Wes gets notified Sally is watching his video.
So he sends a live chat to her that she can respond while she is watching the video. He asks if she has questions, drops a link to his calendar, and Sally books a meeting to learn more — all in real-time.
For Wes, this strategy helps him get more responses from his outbound prospecting.
And as for Sally, she’s now had a great buying experience that is actually relevant to her because we came to the conversation with an understanding of her interests.
AI Chatbots help you drive pipeline 24/7
We also get that you can’t be available to answer conversations 24/7.
And you shouldn’t have to be. That’s where AI-powered chatbots come in.
“Drift’s AI is a valuable asset that we don’t have to manage directly to see great results 24/7”
The bot’s only job is to book meetings for you and build the qualified pipeline you need to hit your number.
It’s also equipped to answer any questions your buyers have, no matter the time of day or where the conversation goes.
Wrapping Up
Here’s the thing.
People don’t want to feel like someone is selling to them. And they definitely don’t want to feel like someone is pouncing on them.
As buyers, we want to feel like we’re being guided by a trusted advisor. And the only way to be a trusted advisor is to take the time to understand your buyer’s goals, needs, and journey.
So enough with the generic messages. Enough with the time wasted talking to unqualified buyers. Enough pouncing.
It’s time to start meaningful conversations.
WANT TO CONNECT WITH BUYERS IN THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME? CHECK OUT HOW CONVERSATIONAL SALES CAN HELP YOU FOCUS ON THE CONVERSATIONS THAT COUNT.
