Executives receive an unrelenting stream of emails and marketing messages—as many as 500 per day— and many of them are sales pitches. It’s nearly impossible for decision makers to attend to even a fraction of these messages. It’s no wonder that sales people find it challenging to get executives to take or return phone calls and accept meetings.
Even the most articulate and convincing value proposition can be drowned out by the overwhelming noise coming at decision makers. Sales hinge on making personal connections with prospects and telling your company’s story, but above all else, a true sales professional has to be heard above the noise. In this incredibly loud market, engaging and maintaining a personal connection with prospects has never been more critical, or more difficult.
Even after a successful first meeting, advancing the conversation and maintaining the prospect’s engagement is essential to meeting quota. Only 7% of sales people are able to get a second meeting. (Sales Benchmark Index)
9 best practices for using digital technology to create connections with prospects and customers
Today’s executives and decision makers are inundated with messages, and consequently, fewer and fewer messages are able to be heard above the noise. But sales professionals don’t have to shout louder. They can be heard above the noise by following these best practices for earning attention and engagement:
- Put a face on it. Share your voice with a personal recorded message accompanying either your photo or video to draw in prospects and amp up the personality of your story. This could be simply your headshot, a YouTube video or a combination. This adds warmth and directness to your messaging, and enables viewers to have a virtual interpersonal interaction in lieu of simply reading an email.
- Make it memorable. Leave a lasting impression with a polished, innovative mode of communication that will impress decision makers and convey the savvy of your product or service. Your user-friendly and personal technology interface will add to prospects’ growing confidence in your offer.
- Tell a story. We all appreciate stats, but understand that numbers can be enabled to support just about any argument. Stories are what engage and move us to a desired action. Of course, one important aspect of any story is that it occurs in a series of events that unfold and take the recipient on a journey. Engaging audiences means telling a good story, step by step.
- Connect with prospects on their time. It’s no longer necessary to ambush the CFO in the wee hours of the morning when she has a moment of quiet at her desk. By including a recorded voice message that conveys the context, your photo and a limited number of bundled pieces of highly relevant content, decision makers can hear and see your story and value proposition at their own convenience.
- Follow up quickly. Why wait for leads or prospects to forget about your conversation? Follow up with them quickly pre-meeting, post-meeting, and even with your business partners during complex sales. Thanks to pre-built templates, digital postcards take under five minutes to customize and create, and even less time to reproduce and edit for a new audience.
- Make it mobile-friendly. The frustration of potential formatting errors or playback problems can undermine and distract from your story. Since odds are high that prospects will be viewing your message on their mobile devices, ensure that your messaging is optimized to accommodate their different viewing styles.
- Context and relevance — less is more. Don’t distract prospects with endless links; because it’s about the right content, not the quantity. Instead, demonstrate that you understand their business and unique needs with a small number of bundled, highly relevant, succinct pieces of content that address the particular business issue at hand. This content can be a PDF, a proposal or other multi-media pieces, along with your personal message.
- Drive demand. Your call to action should never be an afterthought. Make sure your message includes eye-catching calls-to-action that make it very simple for prospects to follow up. You can even include a data-capture form if appropriate.
- Track, analyze, refine. Receive notification by email immediately after a prospect views your message. See exactly what they clicked on and how much time they spent consuming your content, and know the number of times your message was shared. Use these critical metrics to refine and hone your team’s sales performance.
Sell faster with the right tools
The benefits of Inspire Digital Postcards include increased open rates, higher content consumption, more new meetings and faster deals. Users are able to reach previously unattainable decision makers promptly, convey their brand value proposition — i.e., tell their story — and elicit more responses. This, in turn, helps sellers close more deals on a shorter timeline.
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