If you are selling or marketing, your aim is to win the resources of the customer and the most precious commodity is their attention. Good communication is key
Whether you are selling or marketing, your aim is to win the resources of the customer and these days, one of the most precious commodities is their attention.
From lead generation onwards, your most important task is to get the customer to engage with your communications, to give you their attention and as media becomes more fragmented it’s just becoming harder.
Unless you are a commodity, your proposition probably needs to be explained.
If you’re business is set up with a single purpose around a specific problem, it’s easy to explain to someone what you do and why you are relevant, but for most business, its often not clear what the benefit is and there is a tendency for business to focus on the features of the product and assume that the buyer can see why that’s relevant to them.
Buyers don’t have the time to sit and think about what a feature might mean in the context of their business and how this might translate into tangible business improvement that would justify an investment. You have to do that for them.
I do a lot of lead generation on LinkedIn, where you only have 300 characters ( including spaces) to grab the attention of the prospect, so it’s essential to make them instantly see what the value of the product is to them.
Put yourself in the shoes of the prospect and consider how their lives will be better if they buy the product and paint a picture for them.
- Understand what issues face the industry you are targeting and what the trends are
- Understand how your product benefits the target company and collect any tangible supporting evidence you can find
- Understand who owns that benefit, who might have an objective that requires the benefit to be delivered.
If they are passive customers you need to ensure that your outbound communications get straight to the point
Communicate context, solution and include a call to action that lets you retain control. “x is a major issue for Irish companies, but by doing Y, we can deliver a 50% improvement in X, would you be free for a call to discuss?”
If the customer is active and searching, then chances are they are searching on the internet, so it’s important to remember that they are likely to research from the perspective of the problem, so ensure that your keywords cover the problem set, not just the solution, and that your communications are written with the keywords in mind.
Consider what questions you would ask if you have the same problem. If your computer fails, you don’t search for data recovery services, you are more likely to be searching based on what the symptoms are.
Remember, whether B2B or B2C all consumers are time poor, so anything that you can do that simplifies their research and decision making is going to increase your chances of delivering leads and sales