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 Any of these excuses sound familiar? Are your prospects and customers making it difficult to start a sales conversation because of pre-conceived notions like these? What can you do about it?
Educate, for one! You may know that a lot of these objections are based on a slanted perspective, that there is more than one side to the argument. But do our customers understand? We discuss these topics among ourselves. Those of us in the document industry who publish or speak try to clear up misconceptions. But often the end users are not in the audience.
If your customers seem to lack all the facts, then you've got to do something soon to start turning the ship around, because it's going to take a while. At least help prospects and customers get more objective information so they can make intelligent business decisions instead of emotional ones. You can still make sales calls. But getting appointments is probably tough these days. I think companies should leverage additional ways to educate their prospects and customers, give them a different perspective than they can get from the popular press coverage, and elevate your reputation as a knowledgeable resource at the same time.
We've had a lot of success at Print/Mail Consultants with newsletters. It's a lot of work to put these out month after month. But we strive to provide our readers with some information they can use, encourage them to try something new, or prompt them to see things in a different light. If you've been reading Customer Retention NOW! for a while, you've seen our efforts at work. (If you haven't read our educational pieces, check out the archive for past issues!).
Newsletters aren't the only channel for education. There are blogs, magazine articles, white papers, customer case studies, videos, and more. Try several approaches and see what works for you. The key is consistency though. Providing informational content is a commitment that outlasts marketing campaigns, fiscal years, or sales contests. There are a couple of reasons consistency is so important.
1. Everyone on your list won't read every publication you release - The average open rate for B2B marketing emails is somewhere around 15%. Now we usually do better than that with the informational content we create for ourselves and our clients. But even then, getting more than 35% of recipients to read any individual message is a grand slam home run. But different sets of subscribers read your newsletters every month, so publishing randomly and infrequently automatically limits your audience.
2. Trust doesn't happen overnight - Your current customers may trust you already. But prospects need to be convinced that you know what you're talking about and that you understand their issues - you're not just pushing your own products all the time. This means you have to keep hitting your core message and demonstrating your commitment to helping customers solve their problems until your audience accepts you as an established expert they can count on for help and advice.
Generating custom, relevant content on a regular basis in multiple channels may be simple for large organizations that have a dedicated internal staff or use an agency. For everyone else, it can be a struggle. Once we realized how difficult it was for vendors in the document industry to manage a content marketing program for themselves, Print/Mail Consultants started helping them out. Now we create content and manage the process for several organizations. Our clients receive a steady supply of content and a way to get it in front of their customers and prospects on a schedule they set.
Objections from customers, particularly those that seem to be based on incomplete information or misconceptions, are invitations to help them be more informed. Don't pass up on those opportunities!
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Sincerely,