Finding Leads in the Digital Age

Finding Leads in the Digital Age

How to Turn the Radical Shift in B2B Buying into a

Competitive Advantage

What We’ll Cover

How to: q  Navigate the changing buying cycle. q  Capture quality leads from your

website. q  Turn leads into sales opportunities. q  Get marketing and sales on the

same page.

WHAT’S GOING ON? The World Has Changed.

Traditional Selling q  Scarcity of

information.

q  Sales Rep as “expert” advisor.

q  Time pressure to decide.

Inbound Selling q  Abundance of

information.

q  Sales rep as ‘purchase facilitator’.

q  No time pressure.

What it Feels Like Businesses used to operating as a trusted advisor suddenly feel like vendors hawking goods at the market and battling with customers over price.

GOOD BYE SALES FUNNEL The Buyer Is In Control.

Disintermediation Getting Rid of the Monkey in the Middle

Music Industry Independent artists bring a greater variety of good music to the masses at lower cost, while making more money. Music labels, agents and managers lose control.

Self-Publishing Agents, publishers and bookstores cede control of the print market to authors while self-publishing takes off.

Real Estate For Sale By Owner services start to grow rapidly in 2012. Anticipate downward pressure on realtor commissions and realignment of service offerings and fee structures.

Remember this guy? Today, the buyer is in control.

Buyer Behavior Today’s buyer navigates the majority of the sales process independently, without ever engaging directly with your company.

Buyers’ Changing Expectations “I already know what I need, how much it should cost and what quantity I will buy. I’m looking to you to validate my decision and help me make it happen.”

TOUR GUIDE The New Professional Sales Person.

It’s a Jungle Out There The buyer isn’t confident that he has absorbed all of the information, or even the right information. But he has constructed a story to help him organize it. Your job is to align your company with that story.

Information Overload By the time the buyer gets to sales, he has been presented with multiple different explanations. Often, the explanations are in conflict with one another.

PAC4E Yourself Selling is a marathon, not a sprint.

BUYER PERSONAS Aligning Sales & Marketing.

The Buyers’ Journey Status  Quo  

Buyer  Wakes  Up  

Google  It  

Self  Diagnosis  

•  First  Decision  -­‐  What  

Shopping!  •  Second  Decision  –  How  much?  Shortlist  vendors.  

Engage  prospecHve  vendors.  

SelecHon  &  purchase.  

•  The  final  decision  –  who  gets  the  sale.  

Sharing  the  Experience  

Where  sales  typically  enters  the  conversaHon.  

Where  conversaHon  needs  to  begin!  

Understanding Buyers Develop a buyer persona to inform every communication you have around your prospective customers. Marketing & sales must agree on who the buyer is, what he needs, and more importantly what he fears and what motivates him.

Who is Your Buyer

Can you describe your ideal buyer? ² Industry, role, title, age range, gender,

marital status, education? ² What are common interests of people

who fit this profile, outside of work? ² What organizations does your buyer

belong to? ² What publications – online & off – are

read?

Who is Your Buyer

What does your buyer need? ² What trigger event(s) most often start

the ‘wake up’ process? ² What is the end goal, the unrealized

problem the buyer needs to solve? ² How does the buyer frame that

problem? ² What is the story he is telling himself

about the problem?

Who is Your Buyer Why does your buyer need you?

² How do you solve the problem, as the buyer sees it?

² What reservations is he likely to have about buying your product?

² How does your solution fit into the story the buyer has constructed?

² What do you need to influence about the buyer’s story?

² What action do you need buyers to take, to begin a sales engagement?

Who is Your Buyer What questions does your buyer need to answer:

² To understand his problem? ² To choose a course of action? ² To narrow down the vendors to

consider? ² To get the best value from your product

after purchase? ² To remain confident that he has made

the best choice possible?

Next, answer each of these questions: q Using the same language as the buyer

q In a manner consistent with the lens through which the buyer sees the world

q At the exact moment the buyer needs the answer

q Without appearing too pushy or salesy

q While presenting multiple non-threatening options to engage with a human being.

THE PAC4E SYSTEM Inbound Sales & Marketing.

~85%  of  all  B2B  purchases  start  with  a  web  search.  

85  –  99%  of  website  visitors  are  “just  looking”  

Of  the  1-­‐2%  who  are  ‘real’  another  80%  will  not  be  markeHng  qualified  leads  

(MQL)  

Of  the  remaining  20%,  less  than  half  will  likely  become  

sales  qualified  leads.  

What  is  your  closing  raHo?  

B2B Selling Goes Retail

When  the  seller  is  in  control,  nothing  above  this  point  mabers.  

Selling is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t want to be this guy!

Platform & Positioning Create your own podium and establish a platform from which you can get the word out.

Attract Qualified Visitors Buyer’s Journey – the prospect is moving from the status quo and waking up to the problem. Focus your content here around the trigger events that are likely to start this process.

Connect and Capture MQLs Buyer’s Journey – the prospect is aware that something needs to change and is in the “learning” stage, gathering and absorbing as much information as possible. Your goal at this stage is influence the story they will tell themselves about how the problem should be solved.

Cultivate Trust and Develop SQLs Buyer’s Journey – the prospect has developed the story about how they will frame the problem, and is investigating solutions. Convince them to put you in the mix.

Close the Deal – The Sales Conversation As a sales person, you will either take the order or blow the deal. The choice is yours. Are your words consistent with the story that has been constructed?

Captivate Customers In the age of social media, what happens after the deal is done matters. It matters a lot. What do your customers say the morning after?

Evangelize After-sale care is more important than ever. It is the only real opportunity to create a point of differentiation that will hold up under scrutiny. Identify those customers who take pride in their influence, keep them happy and leverage their popularity.

In a Nutshell q Know your buyer. q Develop answers to his questions at each stage

of the buying process. q Create content to answer specific questions &

make it freely available. q Automate information delivery. q Collect contact details in exchange for

information. q Use lead scoring to shape sales response and

personalize automated communications. q Maintain contact post-sale.

Thank You Paula Skaper

KinetixMedia.com pskaper@kinetixmedia.com