As a business owner, your main focus is to get customers. And, in order to get customers, it’s vital you’re providing prospects with the right information, at the right time and in the right format. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the content you provide needs to add value to the buyer. So how do you add value to the buyer? You add value to the buyer through delivering content and information that speaks to buyers at every stage of the buyer’s journey (Awareness, Consideration and Decision). If you’re ready to start closing customers, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I’m going to be discussing three methods, which when used in combination with each other, will help you align your content and sales process to the way people buy.
1. Use Email Segmentation to Your Advantage
These days, email has been become somewhat of a marketing pariah. However, email is not a dirty word and actually remains a trusted and effective marketing avenue amongst most consumers. This is because consumers are familiar with email and it’s one place where they feel a greater sense of control. In fact, did you know that for every $1 invested in email marketing you can create up to $44.25 in return? For this reason alone, email marketing should still form an integral part of your digital marketing strategy to close customers. Here are some techniques you can use with email marketing to help you get customers.
Create a Permission-Based Email List
Never buy an email list and spam your subscribers. Companies found guilty of such practice can face severe penalties. These days, marketers need to build an opt-in list of subscribers who have voluntarily handed over their email address because they know that they will receive helpful and useful content in return. When it comes to building a permission-based list, you should be asking your website visitors to provide their email address in exchange for content they are going to find valuable. This type of content includes eBooks, how-to guides, webinars, newsletters and blog articles.
Segment Your Email List
It can be tempting to send out mass emails to your subscribers that have little to no relevant information. However, this will only get you so far. It’s vital to remember that even if your company only specialises in one type of product or service, each of your customers will be coming to you for that product or service for very different reasons. Sending all of your email subscribers the same, broad message is never going to be as effective as sending each subscriber a targeted email that addresses their specific problems and needs, based on where they are in the buyer’s journey.
2. Using Blogs to Close Customers
Blogging has quickly become a complete marketing revolution and is one of the most fundamental ways to close customers. Blogging is especially effective when it is aligned with the buyer’s journey. That way, you have content that is targeted towards people in the ‘awareness’ stage, people in the ‘consideration’ stage and people in the ‘decision’ stage. Providing prospects with valuable content based on where they are in the buying process is what will ultimately help you close customers, as buyers want to feel valued and that you are speaking to their needs directly. Below are some blogging tips you can employ to help you close more customers.
Have a Purpose
These days, it’s incredibly easy to set up and start a blog, and it can be tempting to start writing blogs as soon as possible, without a clear plan or strategy in mind. This is dangerous as this ‘no strategy’ strategy makes it easy for you to lose direction and momentum with your blog. The purpose of a blog is to create helpful, valuable and shareable content, with the goal of building a consistent relationship with your readers and customers over time.
Write Content Relevant to The Whole Buyer’s Journey
You also need to plan out your blogs and align topics to the different stages of the buyer’s journey. This is because not all buyers are the same and therefore, don’t all need the same content. The needs of a person who has just realised they need a new car (awareness) will be different to the person who has already begun comparing car brands (consideration). If you market the same blog content to all of your prospective contents, you’re just asking to be ignored. The best online blogs that actually get customers address people’s needs at the various stages of the buyer’s journey.
3. Invest in a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)
When it comes to getting customers, getting friendly with a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) is possibly one of the best things you can do. A CRM is software that records the interactions you have with prospects, leads and customers. Did you know that 75% of sales managers say that using a CRM helps to drive and increase sales? Basically, a CRM helps bring together your marketing efforts with business processes to allow you to identify, pursue and manage valuable customer relationships.
In today’s business environment, CRMs are a powerful tool for gathering customer information, recording a company’s interaction with customers and streamlining the marketing and sales processes of a company to make sure they are tailored to each individual customer. These days, the modern buyer wants to feel heard, they want to feel unique. A CRM helps your business more easily and accurately segment customers, identify their needs, track your relationship with your customers and interact with them meaningfully and at the right times. This is what will ultimately help you close customers.
Furthermore, a CRM gives you access to real time data. This data gives you a more holistic insight into your sales funnel and where it is working effectively, and more importantly, outlining where things can be improved, which will ultimately boost your conversion rate.
The Age of the Empowered Buyer
We are now living in the age of the ‘empowered buyer’. So what does the modern buyer want? The modern by is looking for a personalised experience, which is extremely important when it comes to ‘getting customers’. A personalised approach can be broken down into 3 ‘human lenses’:
1. Know your buyer. Connect with leads on social media so when you follow up with them, you can personalise your message based on their recent activity.
2. Know their goals. You can do this via a form on your website, a survey or through email. It’s important that you know – in their words – their needs and what’s important to them so you can understand what they are trying to achieve by using your services/products.
3. Know the right solution. Once you know their needs, you can then determine if you are the right solution for them (don’t be afraid to walk away from a buyer if it’s not a good fit). It is important to position your solution to their unique need.
