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Traditionally, to old marketing model really did blur the lines between sales activities and real marketing. The old model placed most of the focus of marketing on the sales force. They typically
- Found prospects through cold calling
- Qualified prospects with follow up visits
- Performed sales presentation or demonstrations
- Closed the sale
Although that marketing and sales process may have worked to some extent, the new marketing model that has proven to work regardless of whether your business is online or not takes an entirely different approach. The so called new marketing model separates the marketing from the actual sale and utilizes what has become to be known as a ‘lead generation magnet’. Why? Because your marketing effort is only focused on developing your target audience; You’re only looking to attract people who are interested in what you’re selling.
The New Marketing Strategy:
To uitlzie the New Marketing Strategy, you would have :
- Prospects find you through a lead generation tool
- Prospects qualify themselves by taking action
- You provide product or service information that the prospect is looking for
- You use pre-scheduled and/or automated systems to continue to
follow up with prospects
- Prospects contact you to close the sale.
Prospects find you through a lead generation tool:
The focus of your marketing strategy is shifted from trying to sell your prospect at the first point of contact to just finding out if they are interested in what you’re selling.
Using this proven marketing method, your advertising flyers, ads, postcards or sales letters do nothing more than attract people who have an interest in your product or service. When you consider a Chiropractor who places and ad with the headline “Attention All Back Pain Sufferers”. That advertising would attract people who suffer from back pain. The ad is not designed to sell anything. The ad is only configured to attract the attention of people who suffer from back pain.
Prospects Qualify Themselves by taking action:
The ad would go on to list the benefits of a solution and an offer to get more information. The prospect qualifies themselves by taking an action and contacting you to get that information. They are (in fact) telling you that they have a serious interest in your product or service. They may not be ready to purchase (and that’s fine), but they have an interest in what you are selling. By them taking action, they are technically pre-qualifying themselves.
You provide the Product or Service Information:
That ‘additional information’ being offered could be a printed brochure, booklet, DVD of CD. Alternatively, it could be in digital information in the form of an eBook, video or audio download.
Either methods of delivery are acceptable, but what is important in this step is that you clearly define the benefits they would achieve by purchasing your product or service. Any additional helpful information that is available should always be included with your information.
You have a pre-scheduled follow up process to
stay in touch with the prospect (Important!):
This is the point where most marketing strategies fail. And the reason they fail is that the follow up contact never appears. Do you realize that most marketers agree that a prospect has to be ‘touched’ or contacted as many as 7 times before they decide to purchase?
The follow up now becomes the most important part of the marketing program. Look, you’ve done all the hard work of getting the prospect to raise their hand and say that they have an interest in your product. They are pre-qualified. They wouldn’t waste their time by asking for more information if they didn’t have some level of interest in your product or service. They never made a commitment that they were ready to purchase. Right now, we only know that they have some interest in what you’re selling. So why would you stop contacting them?
For that reason, it is strongly recommended that you automate your follow up process. This is where your website can put your entire lead generation process on autopilot.
Your Company Website is Ideal for the
New Marketing Strategy:
Visitors get to your website because of an ad (off line lead generation) or search engine listing (online lead generation). They are at your website because they are somewhat interested in what you’re selling. Your headlines and description of benefits of your product or service causes the visitor to take action. Taking action would be to subscribe to your email list or provide their e-mail address to get more information. Through e-mail, the visitor would be sent a download, eBook or link to view a video.
The important part now is that using an autoresponder service to build your e-mail list, lets you continue to contact that prospect (on autopilot) until they are ready to purchase. Throughout your continued contact, you provide additional information, case studies, testimonials or more information about the benefits of your product or service, enticing the prospect to contact you. You can even provide additional offers for free no obligation consultations, product samples or special ‘new client’ discounts. The options are really endless and far beyond the scope of this article.
The prospect contacts you to complete the sale:
Depending on your particular product or service, the free information detailing the benefits of your product or service along with the continued contact, additional information and special offers, the prospect has become comfortable enough to contact you. At that point, it’s time to close the sale.
The biggest difference between the old marketing and sales model as compared to the new marketing model is that the sales process is totally removed from the marketing efforts. The marketing strategy of the business is to do nothing more than get the prospect to qualify themselves. Now you’re working with a person who already has an interest in your product or service. (Who better to try and sell?)
Utilize this Marketing Strategy to have Prospects
get to know and trust you!:
The ongoing contact provides you the opportunity to demonstrate your experience, knowledge and unique position in the market. It also lets the prospect get to know, trust and like you. After all, nobody purchases from a business or person that they don’t trust.
With good information and the benefits of your product clearly outlined, as soon as the prospect is comfortable with you, after getting to know more about you, they will be in touch to complete the sale.
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