Is Your Internet Marketing Generating Hot Leads?
Doyle Slayton | Oct 14, 2009 | Comments 6
Quality lead generation is one of the biggest challenges sales teams face. I recently had an excellent Reader Q&A submission from Steve Richard, Co-Founder & Head of Training at Vorsight.com. He asked me to share it with all of our readers. Before asking the question, he described the “just looking” scenario we all face…
Your website is like a retail store and your marketing leads are like window shoppers. When you walk into a clothing shop, immediately a clerk approaches you saying, “Can I help you with something.” And you say, “No thanks, I’m just looking.”
This same dynamic is happening every day when your sales team calls on your marketing web leads. The salesperson starts with, “I see that you downloaded X whitepaper or attended Y webinar” evoking the same reaction from your prospects, “Uh-huh, just gathering some information. We’re not interested right now.”
Everyone buzzes about how cold calling is dead and how social media and web marketing fill the top of your sales funnel with hand raisers. Most decision makers I know don’t spend time trolling the internet for information. They send subordinates to do it. You still need the ability to pick up the phone to find and engage the correct decision maker at these accounts. It’s not really cold calling per se because they are browsing. It’s more like quasi-cold calling.
Question: How do you engage your web marketing leads to move them from “just looking” to “I’m interested”?
Kind regards,
Steve
In a few weeks, I’m going to write a follow-up article on this topic. I’ll begin by spotlighting the top reader comments with a link back to YOUR web site/blog! If any ideas are missing, I’ll add my own techniques to the list!
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Filed Under: Blog • Fun-n-Stuff • Reader Questions • Sales
I deal with this constantly. My immediate reaction is scratch & sniff. I actually ask:
No one wakes up in the morning and thinks “boy, I want some sales training, I wonder what the guys at Vorsight are up to these days’.
What is usually happening is that sales numbers are down, the CEO thinks that the sales team is slacking and needs some training so he sends someone to figure out where to get training from.
You need to get this person to open up:
- Cool, just looking around, let me ask you, how are you dealing with sales in this economy?
- how has your sales process changed?
- Has it gotten longer? how much longer?
- Have the numbers gone down? by how much?
Wow, it sounds pretty serious. It seems like the time is right to be looking around for some training. If you painted a picture, what impact would this training have on your sales team?
That’s a pretty great vision. I know your just looking, but what would need to happen in order to make that vision a reality?
From there, you’ve gone from just looking, to interested.
Hi Doyle & Steve,
I have had years of experience calling on prospects that have downloaded information from a website, registered for a site, or simply received some direct mail pieces. My lead generation clients have included SAP, Salesforce.com, and Freightliner among others.
I love it when prospects have already visited a website, downloaded information, or simply registered at the site. That shows an interest, and you can use that when you make a follow-up call. The smartest companies out there use their websites to capture leads they can call on.
When I called on the prospects that showed an initial interest, I would say something like this: “Hi Joe. My name is Emanuel, and I’m with ABC Company. You downloaded our White Paper on lead generation.”
Then I would give the pitch that tells the prospect what’s in it for him or her to work with us. For example, I would say, “We’ve worked with over 50 CEOs at Fortune 1000 companies to help them increase sales through lead generation by 50% annually. I was calling to see if that was something we can help you with as well.”
Notice I didn’t ask if there were any projects I could help him or her with. I didn’t ask if I can send more information either. My goal is to use the fact that their download prompted the call, tell them what’s in it for them to take a logical next step in the sales process, and to have a conversation about how we can help.
Of course, if there is interest, I qualify the lead by asking questions about time frame of need, decision-making processes, and budget.
The only difference between this pitch and the cold pitch is the initial sentence reminding them that they did something on our website to prompt the call.
The best prospects that became customers for me and my clients were the result of White Paper downloads, customer referrals, and trade show follow-ups. Straight cold calling does well but not as well as these.
For more information on this subject, please check out MarketingSherpa’s article: Lead Gen Overhaul here: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31384#
Kind regards,
Emanuel Carpenter
Author the Upcoming Book “Six-Figure Cold Calling”
Like many others that monitor this blog I have had a couple of decades of honing my sales process. There are always new techniques and skills that will improve my ability to succeed. Web marketing is one of them. As I rose in the organizations I have worked for, I began to have a more and more unfavorable view of cold calling. I not only didn’t like them because they interrupted my busy day, mostly with pitches that didn’t apply, but also because I was a senior executive that would never buy based on a cold call and you as a sales person should know that. So I also viewed it as unprofessional.
I have a different view of calls in response to my web searches. I know that a good marketing organization is going to collect information on me when I access information on their site. I always compare the inconvenience of being put on their calling list or e-mail list with the value of the information I am receiving. If I get information from you that can help me understand an issue better, it is not an intrusion to have you contact me. It’s a trade.
Based on the size of my company and my position in the company, I might not be the right person to sell to. In my case I will have decision making authority, but I most likely will rely on my staff to analyze the alternatives. And I will expect alternatives, even if the preferred vendor is my best friend. I have a fiduciary responsibility to my company. Unless my best friend is going to contribute to my retirement, I better make sure I know what I’m doing.
If I looked at the website because you had something to offer that might help me, I will lead you to the right person on my staff to continue the conversation. You also may find that I’m just not informed enough to know you can help me. You still need to find the right person on my staff. They will know enough to know you can help me. There will come a time when we will talk. I’ll determine that timing, not the sales person.
Why do I mention all of this….Because, I am also a consummate sales person… Have been all of my adult life…. I use this knowledge to help my organization to sell to others like me…. I actually encourage our sales force to use LinkedIn and other social networking to identify who this staff member is before the call. That way our sales person can control the conversation and lead the executive toward introducing them to the right person and not some low level staffer that can’t push something forward.
Hopefully your marketing team is engaged and has a formal nurturing program. If not, I would recommend a call and if they aren’t ready to engage, as most probably aren’t, ask them if they’d like to receive additional information about their area of interest as it becomes available.
Now your challenge is to get your marketing team to get you some good content you can use for your own nurturing program.
You can use products like Constant Contact to stay in touch with the leads you want to nurture. The challenge for most sales people is to provide the prospect with a piece of content that is relevant and timely. (brochures don’t count.)
All the best!
Melissa
In order to engage your leads and move them along in the buying process, you have to start with an understanding of the buyer that can only be had through survey research on your buyers and potential buyers (disclosure: I work with a full service research firm but would feel the same regardless).
From an appropriate questionnaire developed to reach your particular market(s) and bring back unbiased results, you can determine: how long they typically need to make a decision after gathering information, what stages they go through in reaching a decision, what the deciding key factors are, and whether they are first-time purchasers. Additional information that would be helpful is what best pricing/packaging/messaging to use, which vendors are in their consideration set for a particular purchase, and what their current challenges and business initiatives are.
The resulting understanding of the prospective client, as well as purchase funnel shape and length, allows a company to better speak with that person in information-gathering mode, by providing value-add information within appropriate time-frames.
hello, ta for the very helpful info mate, there’s so many options with internet marketing these days it’s hard to know where to go for good info, thanks.