How to turn your website into an e-salesperson?
The times when the sales person controlled the entire sales process and was the main (and often the only) source of information about the product, services and company – are gone. Currently, up to two thirds of the sales process is beyond the direct influence of the company. Customers themselves seek information about products and services, look for solutions that meet their expectations and acquire domain knowledge in order to make educated purchasing decisions.
Can you go above and beyond for your customers?
So if you only influence part of a customer’s buying process, it’s all the more reason to ensure that they have the right experience and brand perception. It is almost certain that in their search, a customer will wander over to your company website. If the purpose of the website’s existence is to support sales, then the way a potential customer will interact with your company’s value proposition is quite important.
If you do a good job of extracting the values that your customers might particularly care about and communicate them in the right way, then you can multiply your sales efforts. You will be able to reach and persuade many more customers by delivering pre-educated and interested contacts to the sales department.
What can you optimize?
The early stage of the sales process (prospecting) is very demanding and if performed by salespeople (even in the best laid out sales process) requires a lot of resources. Doing this giant job of reaching potentially interested customers is laborious and time-consuming.
Meanwhile, reaching and getting the customer to take a specific action, e.g:
- leave a contact
- download educational materials
- download educational materials
- contact your sales department by phone
- participate in a webinar or a free course
Through the company website, it can be done seven days a week, at any time of the day or night, and in parallel to thousands of potentially interested customers. What’s more, if your online communication is developed correctly, tested on real customers and optimized for even higher effectiveness – it will act like a machine that generates new customers for your business around the clock in a repeatable and scalable way. Which can’t always be said for the sales department.
How do you make the transformation effective?
You may think you currently have a website but it doesn’t work that way. The question is, was it designed to communicate with potential customers for a clear, sales-oriented purpose?
- Are the different sections and sub-pages designed for the customers you want to attract?
- Do you talk about your products and services in a way that your potential customers can understand?
- Do you use persuasion, create content that is geared towards high conversion rates, and apply proven psychological principles to persuade your audience to take a specific action?
It’s possible that your marketing agency hasn’t indicated to you that you should require this of them, and your sales department isn’t willingly sharing this knowledge with the marketing department.
A sales website vs. a sales person
There are a few more advantages that a well-developed sales website carries over salespeople. You may take some of these with a grain of salt, but good jokes are often based on observations of reality.
A tailor-made sales website:
- speaks all the languages you need
- speaks all the languages you need
- does not ask for a raise and does not expect commission on sales
- tells stories to customers, not to you ;)
- can be accurately monitored on all metrics
- integrates with your CRM without asking or nagging
- always has up-to-date information, and “product training” takes seconds
- is not reluctant to make new contacts in bulk
- exposes those products on which the company cares, and not those which are the easiest to sell
- always speaks to customers exactly the way you want
Salesman “on steroids”.
However, to return to the emperor what is imperial, it is worth remembering that not all products and services can be sold completely without human intervention. Many solutions, especially those that are highly customized and require consultative selling, will still require the involvement of a sales person for a long time to come.
Developing digital support materials, persuasive content, presentations that delight customers and making them a real support for sales activities, will certainly help to increase the effectiveness of conducted sales activities.
Skillful use of interactive websites, supporting clearly defined objectives and applied to specific sections of the sales process are things that your salespeople will definitely thank you for.
At no time do we devalue the hard work of salespeople or belittle the skills of specialized sales departments, but we do believe that supporting them with the right tools allows them to work more efficiently.
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