In “How to Convert Website Visitors to Customers – Part 1,” we discussed the challenges of providing sales Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL’s) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL’s). We also discussed the relationship between marketing and sales and provided 20 marketing tactics to help marketers progress lead maturity.
In Part 1, I suggested in the conclusion that we did not solve the major 4 problems we introduced regarding closing website visitors who visit a business-to-business seller’s website. The issues of (1) Longer Sales Cycles, (2) Complexity of Products/Services, (3) Multiple Decision Makers, and (4) Lead Qualification demand an article of their own, so we will be discussing and hopefully solving in this blog post.
How Marketing Should Handle Longer Sales Cycles
All Marketers strive to create engaging content, generate buzz, and nurture leads to expedite the sales cycle and increase conversions. However, longer decision-making processes pose greater challenges. Although products and services with longer sales cycles typically yield higher revenue, it is crucial for marketers to ensure that their budget allocation for acquiring the sale does not surpass the actual value of the sale itself (ROI is critical, cough, cough).
A sales cycle refers to the predictable phases required to sell a product or service, and it can vary among organizations, products, and services. Each sale is unique, but the sales cycle generally encompasses activities such as generating and maintaining interest through marketing efforts and engaging and converting leads into customers. Visualize the sales cycle using the following simplified representation:
How Marketing Should Handle the Complexity of Products/Services
A successful marketing campaign requires months of carefully planned and coordinated effort across multiple teams and departments worldwide. Despite well-established processes and tools, measuring the effectiveness of these multi-channel efforts can be complex.
When evaluating the impact of marketing activities, questions arise including:
- What motivates a prospect to make a purchase?
- How much influence does marketing have on this motivation?
- Which untraceable elements of a campaign did the prospect encounter?
- Are buying decisions influenced by peer interactions or competition?
- What if multiple individuals are involved in the decision-making process?
The interplay of these factors creates unpredictable and sometimes immeasurable interactions. So, what can marketing operations do?
Start by tracking responses to marketing activities, qualifying them into a marketing-sourced pipeline, and comparing them against costs to show progress. For more intricate measurements, examine internal processes and ensure procedures are in place to achieve repeatable success with integrated campaigns. This involves planning the scope of work, involving relevant stakeholders, and considering various perspectives, including measurement in campaign planning.
Here are eight tips on how to sell complex products!
- Showcase Your Value
- Use Data and Testimonials
- Understand Decision Layers
- Know Your Target Market’s Needs
- Offer Product Education Resources
- Position Yourself Above the Competition
- Use Research to Your Advantage
- Always Focus on Having the Best Solution
In cases where measurement becomes excessively complex, marketing operations teams need to be creative and flexible. It’s important to recognize that some intricate questions cannot be precisely measured. Simplifying complex measurements into misleading metrics or dashboards can do more harm than good.
How Marketing Should Handle Multiple Decision Makers? You Should Get Comfortable for this One
Selling to businesses nowadays often requires convincing multiple decision-makers that your product can enhance efficiency, deliver a significant return on investment, and outperform competitors, all at a reasonable price. Having experienced these challenges firsthand in developing project management software for the finance industry, I can assure you that the journey is far from easy.
Although organizations tirelessly work on creating products that stand on their own merits, they still have to defend these product attributes and benefits to various stakeholders in every sale. That said, I have discovered several strategies that can streamline and enhance the process of selling to businesses with multiple stakeholders. Here, I will share five of the most effective strategies with you.
1. Make Sharing Information Easy
One of the key aspects of effectively dealing with multiple stakeholders is providing them with essential product information in a clear, digestible, and easily shareable manner. By allowing potential customers to quickly share your pricing model and platform details with their colleagues, you facilitate their decision-making process. To begin with, create straightforward and transparent pricing models, eliminating hidden fees or complex up-charges.
In order to differentiate yourself from competitors, it is crucial to have clear and honest pricing. Additionally, providing concise yet comprehensive marketing collateral and one-pagers that clearly outline the benefits of your product can greatly impact potential customers. These shareable materials enable multiple decision-makers to quickly understand your product and value proposition, facilitating a smoother multi-stakeholder sale. Ultimately, businesses aim to make informed decisions about software implementation, so transparency, genuineness, and straightforwardness play a significant role in simplifying the decision-making process for them.
2. Verbalizing Key Differentiators and Benefits
Informing the reader about a product’s key differentiators and benefits is crucial in sales and marketing conversations. Stakeholders can accurately describe the solution to their decision-makers by continuously verbalizing these key points to prospects. It is important to concisely explain what makes the product unique in a way that conveys legitimacy and can be easily repeated. Additionally, it is essential to have a well-crafted elevator pitch and seamlessly incorporate it into demos and conversations with prospects. The goal is for prospects to understand the value proposition, such as “Close deals faster,” and the product’s benefits. By consistently communicating these key takeaways, stakeholders will be more likely to repeat them to their fellow decision-makers, effectively doing some selling on your behalf.
3. Be Willing to Conduct Multiple Presentations & Demos
Having multiple decision-makers involved in the sales process is advantageous because it provides more opportunities to impress and gain interest in your product. Conducting as many demos as necessary to effectively deal with multiple stakeholders is crucial for closing deals. Although this can be frustrating, giving all decision-makers a chance to evaluate your product significantly increases their likelihood of choosing your solution.
Expressing your willingness and availability to demo your product, even if it’s not asked of you, demonstrates openness and approachability that your competitors may not offer. In addition, providing additional content such as pre-recorded demo videos can be highly beneficial. These recordings offer a convenient way for stakeholders with busy schedules or limited availability to explore your product.
Another informative content type to have available is customer-led demos. Decision-makers can witness firsthand how customers in similar roles utilize your offering. By making decision-makers comfortable with your product and reassuring them that implementation will be smooth and simple, they will feel more confident that your solution is the right fit for them. Establishing this level of familiarity can only be achieved by showing them how your product works.
4. Answer Questions Effectively and Directly
Prospective customers value being heard. Thus, it is crucial to listen and pay attention to them genuinely. Active listening and attentiveness during conversations and demos are the starting point to address their inquiries directly, comprehensively, and supportively.
We have all encountered situations where we seek to purchase a product and ask questions about its functionality, only to receive inadequate or evasive responses. Such circumstances can be frustrating, leading to confusion or prolonged decision-making processes. In most cases, individuals faced with this will explore other alternatives.
After conducting a demonstration, your objective is to address any remaining questions or concerns that potential customers may have. Be an engaged and perceptive listener, giving priority to their inquiries over any perceived agendas. If prospects have specific questions regarding a particular aspect of your product, make sure to revisit that topic before concluding the conversation. By returning to areas of concern, inquire if they have any additional questions.
As simple as it may seem, this approach can have a significant impact. It demonstrates your willingness to provide additional information and reaffirms your prospects’ ability to raise any doubts or concerns. Additionally, observing and analyzing frequently asked questions can help anticipate unknown queries and establish a record of questions raised during product demonstrations.
By documenting commonly asked questions, you can create a structured Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page that addresses recurring concerns, expediting the decision-making process for multiple prospects.
5. Have Empathy and Be Patient
Empathizing with your prospects and taking the time to understand their motivations, pain points sincerely, and hesitations will make the sales process better and more equitable for all parties. Practicing empathy also allows you to preemptively address potential customers’ concerns before they become legitimate issues or roadblocks. Decision-makers are bound to worry about whether any solution they’re considering will produce a return on investment, make their businesses more efficient, and deliver results. Leveling with those stakeholders around their uncertainties will foster trust and help you consistently close. Empathy has been central to virtually every deal my teams have closed — but when I think about how important it is, one experience comes to mind. My team was working with a man trying to sell his large, multi-regional organization without the help of bankers. He was overwhelmed and needed direction about approaching the deal best.
How Marketing Should Handle Nurturing Sales Leads
All businesses, regardless of size, should consider lead management as critical and necessary. Implementing a lead management system helps businesses stay on top of their leads and is essential for their success. Leads are the lifeblood of any business. Therefore, lead management plays a crucial role in optimizing lead generation strategies, allowing businesses to achieve their goals and experience growth.
By organizing leads, scoring them, and tracking them at every stage of their customer journey, businesses can gain valuable data and insights. This information can lead to better solutions and higher returns.
Using a lead management system offers several benefits for your business. It allows you to gain more control over your business’s growth, provides valuable data and insights into your lead-generating efforts, makes both your marketing and sales teams more efficient, and improves conversion rates while increasing the number of leads likely to convert.
The lead management system works as a versatile solution for both B2B and B2C businesses of all sizes. It should be an integral part of any customer-centric brand strategy.
Before attempting to improve your lead management process, take a step back and look at how it’s currently performing for your business. Look for areas you would like to see improvement.
Consider if your current lead management solution has helped you achieve your business goals and objectives. Consider if you can achieve more by using your current process or if it’s time to change your lead management process.
This assessment of your current lead management system will become especially important if you want to set and achieve larger goals that your current process can’t help you with.
- Do you want to find more qualified leads?
- Does your current process help you do that?
- Are your leads dropping off at a particular step?
- Can your current process account for those losses?
Although lead management may seem daunting, especially for larger or growing businesses, modern CRM lead management software heavily relies on automation and other tools to streamline the process and make it more manageable.
Conclusion
Lead Nurturing is a critical step in the conversion process, as it builds relationships and trust with potential customers.
- Timing and relevance are key, as delivering the right information to leads at the right time will keep them coming back.
- Through lead nurturing, you can educate leads about your products and services and solve their specific problems.
- Personalization makes messages more engaging and increases the chances of conversions.
- Lead scoring and qualification help prioritize resources so more effort can be placed on leads more likely to convert.
- Consistent follow-up is essential, as many leads need multiple touchpoints before buying decisions can be made.
- Adaptation helps tailor communication based on lead feedback, keeping them engaged.
As we conclude the two-part series “How to Convert Website Visitors to Customers,” With lead management, you should always seek quality over quantity. That one lead that will most likely convert holds far more value than a hundred random people who only have a passing interest in what your business offers.
Your lead management process should work toward finding the most qualified leads for your business. If that’s not happening, take another look at some of these best practices and figure out how to make your lead management system more effective.
Your lead management system is critical in your overall marketing and sales efforts and there are dozens of ways to make your sales and marketing processes more effective and efficient. We will address those in upcoming blog posts; for now let’s leave you with 9 additional ways to convert website visitors into customers.
Here are 9 ways to convert website visitors into customers:
- Have a Clear CTA (Call to Action)
- Answer Website Visitors via Live Chat
- Using a CRM To Turn Leads Into Paid Customers
- Make Sure Your Website is Optimized for Conversion
- Provide Better Customer Service
- Create Email Marketing Campaigns
- A/B Test Different Content
- Segment Your Website Visitors
- Write More Blog Posts
To Learn More About How Nighthawk Can Help You, Please Call Us – as Always, We Are Happy to Help – 1 (858) 692-0819