This is the core of what acSellerant is about, and what all Marketing should provide. It sounds basic, and it is. Everybody knows that trust has to be established before a sale, especially of complex and high ticket items, can occur. What is new is that it’s become increasingly difficult to establish trust. The internet has distanced buyers from sellers. If you can’t get in to see a prospect, how are you ever going to build trust?
trust
Useful and Relevant Information
Most business to business (B2B) companies use their website as brochureware. Boring, static descriptions of their company, its products and services. So easy for a prospect to click away to a competitor site. You just lost a sale and don’t even know it.
What do you do when you’re meeting with a prospect in person? You pay attention to the prospect. You ask questions to uncover problems that, maybe, your products and services can solve. And then you listen.
When prospects find you online, they already know they have a problem and they’re actively looking for solutions. There’s a whole discipline called search engine optimization (SEO) that’s devoted to getting companies, products and services found online. We’re going to cover that in depth in later blog posts, but for today we’ll focus on after they’ve found your website.
Golden Opportunity
Think about it. This individual is looking for what you’re selling. They’re already qualified, to a degree. How do you persuade them to contact you, to ask for a sales call? In stages.
Remember – your goal is to build trust. Establish rapport. Let the prospect know that they’re in the right place and that you might be able to solve their problem. Give them information that is meaningful and helps them to make an intelligent buying decision.
Above all, you have to tell the truth. You can’t build trust with sleight of hand or half-truths. If a marketing agency even suggests something like that, get rid of them. This is the age of transparency. Remember Hillary Clinton’s story about dodging bullets on the tarmac in the Mideast?
A quality marketing agency will help you build a compelling (yet truthful) story around your products and services.
Layers of Complexity
Odds are your product or service (since this is a blog for IT vendors) is fairly complex. Figure out all the questions your prospect will need to have answered before they buy, and give them the information they need. I’m not suggesting that you reverse engineer your product on your website, but you must give prospects enough information, in bite-sized bits, over time, to get them to the point where they’re ready to make a buy decision and they’re willing to meet with a sales person.
If you do this correctly, a number of things happen. While taking your prospects on this journey of discovery, you’re:
- educating them about your company and its products and services;
- very gently, almost imperceptibly, persuading them;
- proving to them that you’re trustworthy; and
- ultimately, becoming a trusted advisor.
Today, your website and other online content (blogs, case studies, email messages, white papers, etc.) are the tools to use to build trust with prospects.
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