With B2B buyers going into research mode when shopping for business solutions, you can bet they will check out your website and those of your rivals.
How do you convince these potential buyers to consider your brand over the rest? Let’s explore strategies that may help turn leads and prospective customers into actual customers.
1. Leverage Behavior Automation
Following up on site visitors is vital but can be time-consuming if you choose to do it manually. And here’s where automation comes in.
Say a site visitor sifts through case studies or testimonials on your site, it could indicate interest that you can capitalize on to take them to the next step.
Crafting an email each time a person shows interest is tedious and you risk missing some leads. Your best bet is to automate follow-up emails that help bring these leads closer to making deals with your brand.
When you leverage activity-based email automation, you ride on your lead’s interests and can capture their attention quicker.
Here are behaviors that may benefit from automated email follow-ups
- Viewing your pricing pages
- Reading through your case studies and reviews
- Scheduling product demos
- Downloading high-intent content
- Signing up for free trials
- Engaging your social posts and email content
- Using your live chat or chatbot apps and other communication channels to inquire about your solution’s features.
2. Work With Data Insights
In previous years, companies relied on hunches, experience, and “winging it” ideas to drive lead conversions.
Today’s businesses turn to data-driven insights to help them deliver messages that drive impact. By impact, we mean turning would-be buyers into actual paying customers.
Here are the top ways you can harness data analytics
- To refine your understanding of your target audience. When you analyze behavioral data you learn more about your customer’s characteristics and their motivations to ensure your efforts reach the right audience.
- To optimize marketing campaigns. Impressions,clicks, and conversions are among the key metrics worth tracking to gauge campaign effectiveness. This way, teams can identify problem areas and adjust as needed.
- Personalize communication. Insights into consumer preferences allow you to customize your communication in line with their individual needs. Through personalized communication, the recipient can resonate with, and you can increase interest, the possibility of engagement, and conversions.
3. Cold Calling
When done right, the cold calling strategy is neither pushy nor annoying. It’s an effective touch point for building human connections, brand awareness, and influencing prospects.
Some businesses hire in-house teams while others outsource their sales needs to lead generation agencies. If you opt for an in-house team, consider the following practices:
- Maintain a positive attitude. It’s in our nature to dislike unfriendly brush-offs but giving up after one or two attempts won’t help you meet your sales goals. The secret lies in persistence and a positive attitude. Keep calling.
- Work on your list. A key step to successful calling is pegged to your list. A highly targeted list based off your total addressable market and containing up-to-date contact information gives your team the platform to generate appointments quicker.
- Listen more. We’re naturally inclined to get through our scripts as quickly as possible so you book sales meetings or close deals. But without listening to the prospect, you give them the impression that their needs or concerns don’t matter. That’s unlikely to bring positive results.
- Mind your tone. With in-person conversations, you can use non-verbal cues to connect with prospects which can’t be said for phone calls. Work on your speed of speaking, pitch, and volume, and use the right words to trigger desired results.
4. Retargeting
There are several times when people visit your site but leave without converting. Retargeting offers a second chance to position your brand in front of these visitors and move them down your funnel.
To maximize this strategy, consider
- Segmenting your visitors. You can do this by the pages they frequented or how long they lingered on specific pages. This will help you pull out specific lists for retargeting messages.
- Employ some creativity in the landing pages, images, and your offer. Ideally, your campaigns are supposed to educate the customer rather than sell, so your messages are inviting and educational.
- Utilize multiple platforms. Craft and run your retargeting messages on a variety of platforms right from social platforms to email, and on Google Search.
- Extend lucrative offers. People who visit your pages but leave without purchasing have probably found better deals elsewhere. Since you and your competitors target the same customers, put together exciting offers that may give you an edge.
5. Use Social Proof
What comes to mind when you read “Over 500,000 products sold”?
First, you’ll find the company less risky to deal with. Second, with so many purchases already made, you’ll feel inclined to purchase from them yourself.
We tend to like what others like and herein lies the power of social proof. If you can successfully employ social proof in your strategy, you can win over more.
Here are social proof types that may help boost conversions
- Customer testimonials. First-hand feedback from people who’ve actually experienced your solutions has the power to sway would-be buyers. They speak from a customer’s viewpoint and are likely to touch on issues other buyers consider important.
- Case studies. Compared to testimonials or reviews, case studies provide in-depth details of your customer’s experiences. They explore the problem, how and why they chose your brand, their journey with you, implementation, and results. Potential customers gauge your expertise from this and make informed decisions.
- Displaying customer logos (especially the popular ones) on your site. Doing so is indirectly telling potential customers that if your solutions worked for others, they will probably work for them, too. It removes suspicion and builds credibility.
- Brand ambassadors. Passionate users, B2B influencers, industry experts, and celebrities help promote your marketing efforts through word of mouth, blogs, vlogs, etc. They help humanize your brand and add appeal to your solutions
