One of the most cost effective lead generation tools available today is email marketing. But when it is done wrong, it can repel rather than attract prospective buyers. It is costly and difficult to connect with prospects whether you are cold calling, knocking on doors, presenting at trade shows – or using email campaigns. You don’t want to be seen as a sleazy spammer.
How do you convert sales leads and drive sales without doing the same thing to our prospects that we hate done to us?
Know the New Customer
The buyer of today is fundamentally changing and evolving with the wealth of information that they can get on their own. In fact, a recent survey states that more than half of C-level buyers use their own research to begin the buying process. Many will restrict purchases to established vendors or lean heavily on recommendations of colleagues. They trust the comments found on the internet more than what the professional sales person shares with them.
To be successful in B2B sales, it is your job to begin educating the buyer when they first start the buying cycle. When you succeed in this task, you are able to frame the discussion and develop a level of trust for your company in the minds of prospective customers. If they see you as a trusted advisor that knows their pain and struggles, they will trust that you can help resolve them.
Simplified System for Establishing Trust
Email marketing can be a mine field for those who have not tried it before. Many sales leaders get stuck on how to engage the sales leads without the sales pitch. We have developed a five step system called the “Magic 5” to help get started with email marketing.
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- Identify five pain points that your product or service addresses for your customers.
- Send an email campaign that leads the reader to content built around those pain points.
- Create five qualifying questions for people who respond to the email marketing content. Your sales team will follow up with these questions to fully qualify them before much time is invested. Make appointments with all who qualify.
- Place those who do not qualify for immediate attention in a lead nurturing system within your CRM.
- After qualification, send a second email campaign that answers frequently asked questions. You probably have these FAQs on your website or in your sales tool box. Simply use them to develop an informative email follow-up system.
The purpose of using this type of email marketing is to generate interest, engagement or a sales lead. Even with carefully crafted marketing automation, you still need to keep your sales staff involved in the buying cycle. They enter the process after the buyer has responded to a targeted, content-driven email. The email campaign does not generate orders. It does generate conversations between people.
This entire system is developed around what the customer needs to stop pains being experienced in business. It is heavily dependent on determining the specific pains and creating content that educates them how to resolve it. Recently we developed a Sales Growth eBook series that gives an in-depth look at each step in the process. It involves much more than we can cover in this article. Yet the process is really simple at the core. We want to help you take your business to the next level. There are 6 webinars and eBooks waiting for you here.