If you’re an entrepreneur, you already understand how competitive the business world has become. To stay competitive and outpace the competition, you must keep abreast of the new marketing technologies, business growth trends, and the latest innovations. Here are the key business growth trends you should pay attention to.

1. Digital transformation

We are living in a time of full-scale digital revolution. The advent of the internet and powerful technologies have improved various aspects of human life. Your company can also take advantage of these scalable solutions and ride the digital transformation wave as part of its growth strategy.

Though new technologies seem to be tailored to individual needs, a digital transformation focuses on improving business processes in the business field. For example, more companies continue to implement SaaS powered systems, cloud-based tools, and contract management systems such as ContractSafe.

Digital solutions can transform your business in different ways. For example, your accounting department can use artificial intelligence to forecast revenue, compare the historical performance of your business, and create accurate reports that could help make accurate forecasts. The sales department can use a high-quality customer relationship management system to track leads and send scheduled marketing emails to clients you haven’t heard for a while.

Your marketing department can also use various email marketing strategies to send highly personalized emails with exclusive product offers based on their customers’ purchase history kept in your customer relationship management system. On the other hand, the human resources department can use various business communication apps such as Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet to manage sick leave and overtime, open private channels of communication with the employees, and create a sense of community within your company.

2. Customer experience is a priority

You truly love your customers. But have you ever wondered whether that love is reciprocal? For most clients, it is not. Recent research from Cisco revealed that 74 percent of customers if the specific brand they use vanished. These findings are scary for tech companies because 70% to 95% of their revenue is subscription-based and comes from up cells and renewals from existing clients.

On the other hand, B2B sales are no longer about investing a lot of money in mass marketing campaigns and to attract thousands of new customers. Today’s businesses focus on the customers they already have and make sure that they retain them by offering positive customer experience each time they interact with the brand. This doesn’t mean attracting new clients is wrong. It’s all about first retaining the customers that you have and attracting new ones that you will also retain. Some of these simple activities that could improve your customer experience include;

• Resolve client complaints quickly
•  Implement flexible policies regarding cancellation and refunds
• Offer real-time client service
• Deliver relevant and personalized customer marketing campaigns
• Consider surprising your clients with event invitations and free upgrades whenever possible
• Working with a contact center in the Philippines or other top BPO companies to provide a 24/7 customer support.

 3. Marketing and sales alignment

One of the things that could be hindering your business growth is a misalignment between your marketing and sales activities. A recent survey showed that aligning your marketing and sales teams can help generate 32 percent higher income, retain 36 percent more clients, and achieve 38 percent higher winning chances. This is because you will be moving your prospects via streamlined marketing and sales funnel.

Aligned marketing and sales teams can help generate more high-quality leads and convert a larger percentage of these leads. Note that marketing leads are usually passed to the sales teams. If these leads are not relevant, the chances are that you will have a huge volume of leads and a low conversion rate. This is a common problem for many businesses.

The good news is that you can solve it by aligning your marketing team and the sales team. Once the sales department informs your marketers what makes a ‘high-quality lead,’ the marketing department will be better equipped to make the necessary changes to find the good leads. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping that they will get the right leads, they can streamline their marketing strategies and attract leads that are worthy of nurturing.

4. Privacy and data security

According to the CMO Council, data privacy, security, and accountability are a top demand from today’s tech-savvy and digitally connected consumer. But only 57 percent of B2B companies are absolutely confident that they can meet those demands.

High profile data breaches have been hitting the headlines for quite some time. This has created the need for data security and privacy. It would help if you convinced your target audience that their personal information is safe. The advent of eCommerce and the need for constant communication between businesses and their customers has necessitated the sharing of personal details such as name, phone number, address, email, and more.

To stand any chance of steering your B2B business to success, you must prove to your target audience that you can keep their information safe. Some of the measures you can take to improve data security include adding HTTPS certificates to your website, ensuring your data management system is compliant to the GDPR regulations, acquiring GDPR-ready customer relations management systems, and more.

5. Data-driven business decision-making process

Generally, business decisions are often made on a table of gut instincts and opinions. But the best way to make impactful business decisions is by relying on in-depth data analysis, presentations, and interpretation. Decisions made based on your business’s historical performance data are more accurate and reliable than guesswork or your accountant’s gut instinct.

6. Real-time customer support

Just think about this… a prospect is signing up for your service, but they need clarification on an issue at the last second. They decide to send a message to customer support. Unfortunately, your client support responds to queries after 24 hours! That’s how you have been losing customers if you don’t offer real-time client support.

Today’s business world is becoming increasingly competitive. If you want to survive, you must pay attention to various growth trends and take advantage of them.