Want to sell more? Here are two insurmountable truths.
Buyers are increasingly sceptical about anything you say and want proof you’re the real deal. And it takes multiple exposures to what you offer before a prospect is likely to trust you enough to purchase.
This applies whether you’re selling a perceived commodity, or higher value product or service.
Here’s a common scenario.
You’re either looking for something specific and do a Google search. Or you see an advertisement.
Both direct you to a webpage.
You make an almost instant decision to either delve in further or bounce right off to look at the next search result.
If you delve in further and think, “Interesting, I’ll come back to this later”. But you never do.
Either way the advertiser has wasted his money.
There are two ways to stop this waste. I’ll cover the first today.
The job of all advertising is to capture your prospect’s attention.
But attention is not enough. Remember, your prospect is sceptical. So engagement is critical.
But most people spend seconds to a few minutes on a site before moving on. So how can you develop a longer term relationship allowing you to educate your prospects, demonstrate competency, value and deepen trust?
The short answer is you must entice your prospect to leave their details with you, giving you permission to keep in contact.
In the early days of the internet people happily entered their names and email addresses into sites. But no longer.
Now you have to offer something of real value to them in return for their details.
Commonly called a lead magnet, this material could be anything of value from a free white paper, video course, email course, ebook, physical book, quiz, checklists or free trials etc.
Package this up and prominently offer it to visitors in return for their contact details.
Your only goal at this stage is to capture their details in return for the gift so you can consistently follow them up with more targeted and valuable information and keep at top of their minds.
Our clients use a variety of lead magnets from free reports on how to navigate the financial complexities of property investment, moving into aged care or sales force automation.
Others use quizzes to draw prospects in.
Our own new lead magnet is a comprehensive e-book on the “10 critical marketing & sales traps which slash profitability and how to avoid them”.
Remember, capturing their details is only the first step in a potentially long process.
You must consistently follow up with interesting and relevant material, interspersed with offers to take the next step, be that a consultation or buying your product.
You cannot control when a prospect is ready to buy. Your only job is to be in front of them when they are.
Which is why sending out a regular newsletter is essential.
At the very least I’d recommend monthly. More frequently if possible. Ours comes out twice a week.
Yes, it can be a lot of work to produce, but it pays major dividends as it demonstrates consistency and reliability which is a foundation to building up trust.
And no, you don’t have to write it yourself. We teach our clients strategies whereby they can get the material created for them.
Of course there’s a lot more to this strategy than meets the eye. If you’d like help creating a lead magnet and follow up strategy for your business, call us.
And look out for our article next week on the other incredibly overlooked method to keeping your name in front of targeted prospects regardless of whether you’re in the high value B2B or consumer product space.
