Simple question: Does Your Website Support The Sales Process?
Why is there always a disconnect between sales and digital marketing? Sales are the lifeblood of most organizations, and marketing is the oxygen to make sales come to life. So, again, why is there such a disconnect between your web development or digital marketing and your sales process?
Supporting the Sales Process
The first step to making any supporting anything is gaining an understanding. Work closely with the business development team to understand client pain points, objections, and the questions they are asked most frequently. This helps you get a clear understanding of what it’s like to be 100% client-facing.
Digital Marketing to Support Sales
Here are some ways Trinity Web Media uses Digital Marketing and WordPress Development support the sales process:
• Create a content marketing strategy or initiative to overcome objections before they occur. Look, we already know what the typical objections your business development team hears, so now is the time to get ahead of the objection.
Example:
Objection: I don’t think my business needs a website.
Content: Every business needs a website to own a piece of the Internet vs. just building on the rented land of social media. (link: Do You Need a Website For Your Business?)
• Use data to create buyer personas to speak to the buyer in a manner that best resonates. When people feel like you understand their pain, they will want to work with you. We always say people want to do business with people they know, like, trust and who can solve their problems.
• Use specific landing pages and non-menu pages for particular campaigns whenever possible. When you do this, you speed up the sales process, plus it also builds off the previous point.
True story: We are working with a medical professional that has their data segmented by people who filled out a contact form and came in for a consult and also never came in for a consultation — let’s call them segment A and B.
Segment A: Receives an email that drives them to a landing page with an incentive to take the next step, which in this case is getting on the books for an appointment. The conversion we want here is a phone call to book because, in this case, filling out another form is pointless. Why would we want them to fill out the same form they already did? We see this mistake happen all the time, and it is a silly mistake.
Segment B: This audience receives an email or notification to schedule a consultation. For this group scheduling a consult is the next logical step in the process. Let’s give them messaging to get them to move one way or the other. Remember, sometimes, a No is just as good as a Yes. If we get the business development team a NO, the person can be removed from being contacted, and we can move on to stop wasting time. Of course a yes is preferred, but if we get a No we are still supporting the sales process.
• Develop your sites with a frictionless experience for conversion. Whenever possible, place forms in sidebars and use landing pages. Measure how these forms are used and make adjustments as necessary. If a salesperson is contacting a prospect about service, XYZ brings them to a page that discusses XYZ only. Do not overcomplicate things.
• Whenever possible, communicate as a collaborative team. When you do away with us vs. them mentality and know there is only one us, it is incredible what you can accomplish. Listen to everyone and respect people’s input, and they will appreciate your ideas.
Take a look at your sales process and see how your web development and digital marketing stack up. If you take time to make sure they are one congruent strategy and let your Website Support The Sales Process everyone wins.
