The New Year offers the opportunity to analyze your current business practices and consider ways to improve the status quo. One strategy small business owners can utilize is looking at the latest big business trends, and evaluating which can help their companies succeed in 2017. To save you time in your search, we have found and included the most popular big business trends in this article.
Subject Matter Experts Replace Salespeople
While the goal of every business is to sell, business-to-business (B2B) companies can benefit from hiring subject matter experts (SMEs) to lead their salesforce. While a typical salesperson can be entry-level, providing price options, delivery times, and general product information, a subject matter expert is much more than that.
This is an experienced professional who is not only extremely knowledgeable in the product or service being sold, but the company’s goals, the competition and the overall industry. These professionals can provide a great value to consumers as they can make recommendations based on individual business needs and explain clearly the competitive advantage your offerings have over your competitors.
Videos Become Content Musts
It’s no longer enough to write product descriptions or compile written instructions, as the public is demanding video content. In fact, Cisco predicts that videos will make up 69 percent of all consumer internet traffic in 2017.
Hubspot confirms this prediction; their Consumer Behavior Survey found that 55 percent of users report watching an entire video, versus just 29 percent who would read a blog or 33 percent who would finish an interactive article.
What does this mean for small business owners? Invest into creating videos that highlight your products, services and overall company. This effort will pay off with higher sales; Forbes found that 65 percent of individuals who saw an online video then visited the company that posted it.
Social Media Takes Over Direct Email Campaigns
Forbes reports that collaboration tools, like Google Docs, are replacing internal communication between employees. Instead of sending and receiving dozens of emails when working on a project, employees make changes and post comments online, which means that B2B companies will have a harder time getting potential customers to read their email campaigns, as they will not check their inboxes as often.
How do you reach new and existing clients if not through email? Through social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Updating relevant photos, posts and news about your company will resonate better with your target audience rather than just blasting emails out at them.
If you choose to implement a big business idea for your small enterprise, such as adding a subject matter expert to your team, or creating a video, you may find it difficult to fund these endeavors. IOU Financial makes it our mission to help small business owners succeed and grow their businesses with small business loans. Click here to find out how you can secure a loan in under 24 hours!