As this is a short week in the US, this will be a short post.
Self-selection - helping prospects easily select into your lead process - is a great way to improve funnel efficiency and sales velocity. A good way to do this on your web site is to be right up front. Put your segments right there for people to click on as soon as they come to your page organically. Don't make them work for it. (they won't) Nothing frustrates me more, or makes me bounce off a site faster, than having to figure out if the product or solution relates to me.
ServiceMax has a site that does a good job of helping you self-select. (Full disclosure: I don't know ServiceMax from Adam, I just found their site one day and liked how it's organized) Their catch phrase makes it obvious that if you aren't about field services, this company is not for you. The Solutions option right in the middle is the perfect next step. You click on your industry to learn more how this can help you and your particular problems. VERY easy to figure out and click to the next step. The segments are also unambiguous. There's no possibility that a Residential Services prospect will accidentally go to the Life Sciences Manufacturing section.
Contrast that with McAfee. They are okay on helping you self-select based on company size, but after that, you are on your own. Clicking on the Products link for each segment gives you a withering array (all different) of products to choose. Company size may be how McAfee segments its sales channels but is a poor way to segment its web site. A prospect has to know what they are looking for BEFORE they hit the site in order to find a solution. Segmenting the site by job function or problem-being-experienced would be two options to help prospects navigate quicker.
You still need resonant, well-written messages once your prospects reach the right part of your web site but your prospects will be more likely to stick around if you let them quickly find what they need.
This also translates directly for your sales team, too. If they understand the segments, they will spend less time finding prospects and less time talking to non-prospects.
Key take-away: Make it easy for your customer segments to figure out if your stuff is for them - on your web site and in all your marketing materials.
Next up: PLEASE put some rational thought into your company descriptions!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
For Want of A Nail
Last time I talked about a buyer-oriented "translation" tool that helped "IT align with the business" - or more appropriately, helped your sales team align all the stakeholders in the process. The tool can be very effective if you have access to everyone involved to build out the pain points, language and logic flow. But how to do that, especially if this is a new market for you or your sales people?
The danger of selling technical products to IT people is believing that your solution only improves their little corner of the world. Yes, you're going to lower their total cost of ownership, enhance their customer experience, maximize scalability or whatever MABUSHI you think sounds impressive. But what about the users who depend on those systems? Have you talked to them? Do you understand how their world is affected? Do you understand their influence on the decision? What role do those users play in the company and what happens if they can't do their jobs?
If you don't know the answer to these questions, your sales people are vulnerable to a competitor who does know or, worse, to a price war that sets their sales strategy forever after.
The next time you are talking to your IT persona, be sure to include these types of questions if you want to be able to build that complete picture:
You ask those business or operations users the same set of questions, especially about who else is impacted by the problem. Keep going until you've explored the furthest reaches of the value chain. Then and only then can you build a tool that helps you and your sales team understand the complete picture, with all the requisite stakeholders, language, metrics and pain points.
It can be a complex picture but an old English rhyme puts it all in perspective:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
You may be talking to the IT equivalent of a farrier but you need to understand their significance to the battle and the kingdom to build better sales tools and be more competitive.
Next Up: Self-Selection and Getting to No
The danger of selling technical products to IT people is believing that your solution only improves their little corner of the world. Yes, you're going to lower their total cost of ownership, enhance their customer experience, maximize scalability or whatever MABUSHI you think sounds impressive. But what about the users who depend on those systems? Have you talked to them? Do you understand how their world is affected? Do you understand their influence on the decision? What role do those users play in the company and what happens if they can't do their jobs?
If you don't know the answer to these questions, your sales people are vulnerable to a competitor who does know or, worse, to a price war that sets their sales strategy forever after.
The next time you are talking to your IT persona, be sure to include these types of questions if you want to be able to build that complete picture:
- How do you know you have a problem with x?
- When you have the problem, how does that impact your operations?
- Does that impact your performance metrics? How? (You DID ask them about their metrics already, didn't you?)
- Who else is impacted when you have this problem? Who calls you when things go pear-shaped? How does it affect their jobs?
You ask those business or operations users the same set of questions, especially about who else is impacted by the problem. Keep going until you've explored the furthest reaches of the value chain. Then and only then can you build a tool that helps you and your sales team understand the complete picture, with all the requisite stakeholders, language, metrics and pain points.
It can be a complex picture but an old English rhyme puts it all in perspective:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
You may be talking to the IT equivalent of a farrier but you need to understand their significance to the battle and the kingdom to build better sales tools and be more competitive.
Next Up: Self-Selection and Getting to No
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