Be the Source of Insight Using Marketing Automation
Buyers are different than a few short years ago. They are more educated and spend time online to find resources of ever-increasing knowledge. Their insatiable desire to know more about the products and services they purchase can lay the foundation of your marketing automation campaigns.
According to a recent Rain Group study of more than 700 B2B purchases, buyers prefer sellers who are perceived as a source of insight rather than only selling their product or service. The winners approach the sales process in a totally different way than those that fall in line behind them. When provided true insights into your business buyers not only purchase, they are also more likely to give repeat orders, referrals and customer loyalty.
End of Solution Selling
While a Harvard Business Review article claimed that Solution Sales are dead in 2012, most experts believe that a combination of solutions and insights make a good sales strategy.
Solving problems that keep your sales leads up at night is still important in your email marketing campaigns. What appears to be different is that buyers crave sellers to offer more than just solutions that revolve one product. They want to know more about how you are situated in the entire scope of things.
Satisfy a Sales Leads Hunger
Business buyers are carrying over habits from their personal lives. When they consume products on a personal level, they spend a great deal of time discovering options for each purchase. When they feel they have found a bargain, they share their brilliant discovery on social media so others can see their good research and perceive them as a smart consumer.
So, in an effort to learn as much as possible about the purchase options in their business, your buyers are going to spend time researching. They will spend hours and hours online, even when watching TV in the evening with family, to feel confident they are being smart in their company’s decisions. Marketing automation that offers insight into your knowledge base feeds their need to know.
Executive decision makers are increasingly risk averse. Now C-level executives prefer to do their own research and consider getting significant insights into major purchases part of their responsibility.
Share What You Know
A successful company can no longer hold industry information close to the vest. Instead, to satisfy the sales lead’s need for information, you can feel free to share information PLUS the source of information. Include hyperlinks to studies and other empirical data rather than leaving them to find less trustworthy claims on their own.
A decade ago, you put much effort to being the expert for everything about your business. You probably did not want to bring in an outside expert to corroborate your opinion. These days, your willingness to share your source is considered more professional. Your sales lead will see you as more knowledgeable than those who only share what they personally know.
Multiple Decision Makers
Very few purchase decisions are made without multiple layers of decision making these days. When someone in the organization chooses your company to fit their need, they will often have one or more people involved to second-guess the decision. Providing source information in the lead nurturing process enables them to defend their reason to select your company.
To effectively nurture your sales leads and guide them down your buyer path it is important to consider their need for information. Be their source of information in your marketing automation efforts and expect to see an increase in sales.