As promised, here’s the follow-up to the Sales 101 article. The question of the day is: Can marketers be closers too? The answer is yes. There’s a great Allbusiness.com article I used for inspiration entitled “How to ask for the order.” The article is written by Ivan Levison, an award-winning copywriter.
This is a great quote from Levison’s article:
It kills me when I read terrific copy in an ad or direct mail piece, then I get to the end and find the company has blown its best chance to make the sale. … The whole point of direct response marketing is to grab the prospect — vigorously. And readers don’t mind. They’re usually in a hurry and want direction, not just a wimpy suggestion that they should “call for more information.”
With Ivan’s article as my inspiration, I have decided to write a post on how to close in direct marketing. Quite frankly, it has been a challenge to write. Bottom line, in certain types of markets you simply can’t close a sale via email. But you can still close in other industries.
There are two types of marketing closes. I have labeled one SMP (small-to-medium-sized purchases) and the other EP (enterprise purchases). Both categories are defined by a couple of factors:
SMP: “Closing” means getting a business to buy your product via email or other marketing campaign. The SMP attributes are:
- Small Business (roughly 1 to 25 employees)
- Average selling price of your product is under $40,000
- Short sales cycles
EP: “Closing” means getting a prospect to “do something” such as view a demo or talk to a sales rep (notice I didn’t say “download an introductory white paper”). EP attributes include:
- Mid-sized business and up
- Average selling price is over $40,000
- Long-considered purchasing cycles
With these two categories, I think I can give you the five elements you need to be a marketing closer:
1. Make them buy SOMETHING.
- SMP: Get them to buy the actual product. Attach things like: “request a quote” forms (love this), discounts, order forms and coupons to your email. Go for the close.
- EP: Get them to “buy” an online demo or a call from a sales guy (love this too, see funnel economics below).
2. Understand your funnel economics. (Well, I am the Funnelholic.)
- Especially in EP: Understanding how the sales funnel works and where you can insert prospects will tell you what you should close on. For example, you may find that prospects who view the online demo have shorter sales cycles. Boom: you know that the demo is the right thing to close for in marketing.
3. Light the ticking time bomb.
- Urgency, urgency, urgency.
- SMP: Ivan wrote about urgency particularly with expiring coupons or discounts which is totally appropriate for SMP.
- EP: This doesn’t work for EP. What does work is creating business urgency: “Dow Jones executives fired after customer data was breached.” It has been known for years as FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and it still is!
4. Answer buyers’ objections.
- Ivan brought this up and I liked it a lot. Too much collateral in technology especially has “pie-in-sky” esoteric marketing messages that nobody knows. I like Ivan’s example, which can work for both SMP and EP:
“Straight answers to tough questions about XYZ Software” is better than “Why you should buy our wonderful product.”
5. Create an easy-to-understand, frictionless buying process and then CLEARLY tell people how to to do it.
- Everyone talks about Salesforce.com Inc.’s rise to power and the many reasons why, but one reason that gets lost is how Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff made it easy to buy software. You know how hard it used to be to buy software? With Salesforce.com, it was totally frictionless.
- If you can achieve this type of buying process, let people know how to do it in your marketing! Try something like: The “3-easy steps” to buying Solution XXX: “To buy, it’s as easy as clicking here and filling out a simple form.” Note: this is primarily an SMP phenomenon.
I think this post may be confusing, but the goal is clear. Think like a sales guy in your marketing, answer customer objections, create FUD and close!
Written by Craig Rosenberg - The FunnelholicSign up to receive emails when new articles are posted
Want to connect directly? Email me at craig AT funnelholic.com<
The Funnelholic
