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Does your website
underperform? Does it fail to attract new
customers … and is it,
in truth, really little more than an ‘online
brochure’?
If your web presence
is like most other corporate sites, then
the answer is probably ‘yes’. In
fact, sites like these actively drive away
many new customers, never to return.
OK, most of these corporate
websites to which I refer will save a business
money on the print costs of literature. Fine.
But if your site is like so many others,
then it is failing to utilise the full power
of the internet to enable you to target precisely
the customers you want, stimulate their interest,
and automatically capture key data on each
prospect and their requirements. In other
words, to deliver new, semi-qualified sales
leads to you.
I said that many corporate
websites actually deter new customers. Why? Because they
feature a lot of data of which some 75% is
irrelevant to the visitor, certainly at the
initial stage of the purchasing process. Visitors
will promptly leave the site if unable to find
the information they require, quickly and easily.
What if the site is structured to be entirely
relevant to each visitor and they DO have a
real interest - but they visit the site and
then depart - how do you capture key information
on the sales prospect?
You may know that people have visited the
site, from the web stats, but who were they?
What was their interest?
The key to success
in web marketing is firstly to understand
exactly how people buy a product or service
like yours… the process by
which customers gather and prioritise information
from the internet and other sources… how
they are influenced… their particular
requirements for information and for assurance
of the value you can deliver… and also
for you to understand what determines their
ultimate purchasing decision.
Once you have understood how your customers
buy, the most important question for you then
is this: what do you need to do to make it
as easy and compelling as possible for your
target audience to buy from you?
The answer is to develop
a highly effective sales process – that
is, to engineer a set-by-step mechanism for securing high quality
leads on the internet in a process that mirrors
how customers buy in the real world. Sales
process engineering. Your sales process will
deliver the information that the prospect requires
in order to purchase from you - and the data
that YOU require to progress the sale. No
more, no less. We all know the sites
that do this well: probably the Amazon website
is one of the best examples: but similar success can be obtained by much smaller
companies albeit on a smaller scale, operating on
a fraction of the budget.
The principles of ‘sales process engineering’ are
revolutionising sales and marketing. For
the last 3 years I’ve studied and modelled
buyers’ strategies in a range of sectors,
to really understand how they make a purchase.
With this knowledge, it’s possible to ‘engineer’ a
sales process that operates optimally, to maximise
the return on investment.
To understand the principles
of sales process and what they mean for YOUR
business, consider your answer to this question:
at what stage in a customer’s purchasing
process does he/she visit YOUR website?
Is this the first contact that a customer
usually has with your business - perhaps following
an internet search, or maybe in response to
your publicity, at Stage 1 in your sales process,
as it were?
Is it secondary contact,
at Stage 2 let’s
say - after they have some knowledge already
of what you do - perhaps having met you - to
find out further, more detailed information… or
actually to buy from you?
Or is it Stage 3: is the web contact mainly
part of the on-going relationship with your
existing customers, who perhaps visit for information
updates or to re-order?
Your answers to these
3 questions are absolutely critical in defining
the purpose and function of your website – and
are the starting point in formulating a web
strategy that will win you a higher volume
of new business.
Most corporate websites should, ideally, meet all 3 requirements
in full. Most
don’t. Some are quite good at stage
2 (the ‘online brochure’, perhaps
with e-commerce facilities, if it is relevant). Some
even at Stage 3 too (as an ‘online newsletter’,
maybe with e-commerce, again) - but only if
the sites are kept up to date and regularly
refreshed, it must be said!
But most sites miss
out on the tremendous functionality that
the internet can offer at all 3 stages. Specifically:
to deliver highly focused information, with
maximum convenience, that a selected audience
of customers requires in order to buy from
you.
This is a fundamental
objective in an effective web strategy – the ‘engineering’ of
a unified, internet sales process to maximise
the generation, progression and ‘close’ of
sales leads and repeat orders, cost-effectively
and consistently.
I’d suggest that of the 3 Stages, the
key stage - where the benefits of the principles
of sales process are most conspicuous and measurable
- is at Stage 1: to deliver a volume of new
sales leads, from new sources. This is
the prime area of concern of this document.
So here are key recommendations:-
Firstly, sales prospects
initially want only helpful, unbiased and
relevant information. Certainly,
this is the case if you market a product or
service of any complexity which requires some
explanation and differentiation of the benefits
and features from your competitors’ offerings.
The type of data I’m suggesting you
provide at Stage 1 ‘positions’ your
business in the mind of the customer as a ‘trusted
source’. You are not seeking to
sell, certainly not at this stage… this
might follow as the next step - such as via
a link to an online catalogue – or ‘selling’ might
be several steps down the line, such as following
a sales meeting, according to the particular
sales process for your business,.
Secondly, a dedicated ‘micro-site’ is
an ideal vehicle for delivering the information
I described above in order to market your products
and services. The site directly and exclusively
deals with the core subject of interest – in
this case, your interest in an effective web
strategy. There should be no distracting
animated graphics or irrelevant buttons or
other details on the micro-site.
Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly
a place for good design, animations too – such
as at http://www.salesgenerator.co.uk/ . But
the micro-site, as the initial point of contact
with your business, is not the place for fancy
graphics.
You’ll probably require a micro-site,
for each individual product or service (or
product/ service group) you offer. It’s
worth the investment.
Research has shown
that web visitors trust, and purchase more
from a site that is seen to be ‘specialist’, rather than ‘generalist’ – for
example, they prefer to book their flight,
accommodation, insurance and other holiday
services from different web suppliers. It’s
the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ perception,
- and ‘first impressions’ are crucial
here. Once you are trusted, you can then
sell other, related products or services.
(Incidentally, if you
want to offer e-commerce, the micro-site
could be linked to a specialist ‘gateway’ page
on your main website, for example, to feature
only products/ services that are in the group
of interest to the sales prospect - if that’s
relevant to your own particular sales process. Consider
too how Amazon enables specialist vendors to
partner with it, and to link to relevant books
on the Amazon site).
Third, the format and
presentation of the page and data it contains
should follow certain well-proven principles. These
ensure that the information is communicated
to maximum effect.
A compelling headline
is essential on your micro-site, so that
visitors want to read further… text
should be easy to read, black text on a white
background, in a Times New Roman or similar
font… the text should be longer rather
than shorter – certainly long enough
to relate all the information you wish to impart. The
copy should be written in an interesting, conversational
style. English as it is spoken.
Fourth, remember that
the micro-site is a part of your sales process… it
is one step in the mechanism for developing a ‘suspect’ – a
cold prospect who might never have even heard
of your company – into a qualified prospect
and then a retained customer.
To progress a cold
prospect through to the stage of reading
the information on your micro-site, you’ll need to market the information
(though adverts, PR, DM) in advance - perhaps
promoting the content as a ‘Free Report’.
You’ll also need
to consider this: what is to be the next
stage in your sales process: what do you
want your prospect to do once he/she has
visited the micro-site and read the information?
You will need to feature
a ‘call to
action’ at the end of the text, in other
words, to invite your sales prospect to take
a further step, to make some kind of commitment. It
might be the case that the sales prospect is
ready to click a URL link to a product catalogue
and make a purchase (as described above). But
in many instances this will not be the case,
and there might be a whole series of stages
to go through still - including phone contact
and a sales meeting, perhaps – over weeks
or months.
That’s fine… so long as you have
a planned sales process which ensures you can
manage regular contact and that it includes
periodic ‘prompts to purchase’ – by
e-mail, phone or other means. I say this
because you - like me - probably receive regular
e-newsletters from suppliers, but you never
actually get round to making a purchase! A
good ‘prompt to purchase’ would
be a high-value, low-cost special offer, with
a time restriction.
Fifth, automation.
The more elements in your sales process that
are automated, the more efficient it becomes
- this is particularly the case where you
engage with a high number of prospective
customers .
The process by which
visitors access your micro-site can be fully
automated with specialist software, with
a web form… an ‘acknowledgement’ page… and
the ability to respond to completed forms with
an e-mail with the URL link to an online PDF.
Similar automation
technology can be used powerfully to maintain
contact with your new and expanding database
of sales prospects. This
is important for sales process engineering.
It is essential to remain in touch with prospects,
with 7 communications a year, the research
shows. Selling is an ‘opportunistic’ business – a
sales prospect who is mildly interested today
may be a ‘hot prospect’ next month
or next year, because of a change in his/ her
circumstances.
So, those are my top
5 recommendations, for developing a Stage
1 sales process – to
generate new leads through a dedicated micro-site.
To see an example of
an effective micro site on this topic – for
layout and presentation, and incorporating
the use of automated e-responder - please
click http://www.websalesprocess.co.uk/
About the author
Patrick Rea, Chartered Marketer, is a sales
and marketing consultant, director of Rea-TMA
Marketing, developer of Sales Process Engineering,
the methodology to define systematic, transparent
and measurable sales processes for integrated
sales and marketing strategies.
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