Are you promoting SaaS-sy software designed to keep internet users free from malicious hackers,
… place a professional art studio at your buyer’s fingertips,
… generate thousands of social media followers overnight,
… or serve your valued customers in any of 1001 other ways?
Keep reading and you’ll uncover key strategies for generating new leads, shortening sales cycles, and unlocking the profits that await you.
1 – Connect the Dots and Eliminate Gaps in Your Customer’s Inbound Journey
If your software leads straight from the Top of the Funnel (ToFu – not the cheesy bean curd)
… to the Bottom of the Funnel (BoFu)
… without the Middle of the Funnel (MoFu) to connect the parts of your inbound plan …
… you risk losing profits, according to Darren Faber of Foxtail Marketing.
Foxtail’s 2016 SaaS Marketing Stats and Trends study analyzed two years of data from 40 companies. The survey showed more than 80% of businesses did not bridge the gap between ToFu content like product ads and BoFu content such as downloads and trials (BoFu).
Faber concluded that companies lose time and money by failing to connect the path.
Informative and user-friendly resources like webinars and email nurture campaigns can show prospects specifically how new software meets pressing needs … and future customers move forward more quickly to trials and purchases.
Marketers can lead prospects forward with MoFu content such as:
- Videos
- Case studies
- Targeted Emails that educate
- Live webinars with guest experts
- Ebooks addressing specific topics
- Product demos
- FAQs
- ROI calculators
- How-to guides
- Fact sheets, and
- Purchasing guides comparing similar products
2 – Raise Your ROI with Email
With direct access to leads and a 3,800% Return On Investment, Email is gold to marketers.
In the same Foxtail Marketing Stats and Trends study, Email campaigns for software marketing scored an average open rate of 7% to 38% and a click-through of 1% to 9%. The conclusion? Email “destroys” ads.
The right Email strategy can give you:
- Fast, inexpensive testing and segmentation
- New conversations that grow into relationships
- Expert content to educate, entice, and sell
- A convenient way to tell customers about new changes or additions to your products and services
- A channel for re-engaging and nurturing lukewarm leads who will be ready to buy later – even months or years into the future
A smart marketer at Drift recently sent me an Email asking for my integration wish list. He also told me about the company’s new platform for developers. Any customer can now build apps, bots, and integrations to work with the conversational marketing platform.
Integration is a huge asset for SaaS buyers and massive source of frustration when it doesn’t work. With one email, Drift brought me into the decision-making process, started a conversation, and alerted me to the exciting changes ahead.
What can you do with one email?
Related: How to Optimize Your Email Marketing in a Mobile World
3 – Educate
Want to shorten sales cycles and bring more customers on board? Educate decision-makers about the benefits, security features, success stories, and nuts and bolts of your product.
The 2016 IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Survey asked 925 Internet Technology Decision Makers (ITDMs) about moving to the cloud. The results showed that companies wanting to close more software sales need to educate prospects about security. Yeah, we know the cloud has been around for a decade, but hacks happen. And they make the news.
Your people most likely need reassurance:
- 44% of respondents indicated that their organizations resisted or rejected cloud computing because they lacked knowledge about the cloud
- three out of ten said they couldn’t make the move to cloud without helping key executives understand its value compared to its risks
- 71% needed “details about the vendor’s security practices,” and 61% wanted “proof of the vendor’s cloud security expertise”
How to go about it?
OAUG’s 2017 Survey on Cloud Adoption and Co-Existence found that storytelling is the most important way to help prospects get to know and use Oracle Cloud solutions. User stories were particularly persuasive. Roadmaps for moving to the cloud also helped bring people onboard.
In the early days of Interact, co-founder Josh Haynam discovered how important tutorials can be as part of a profitable inbound plan.
When Interact first advertised their online quizzes, sales hit a wall … even after web page conversions for their first quiz client jumped from 1% to 70% with a single quiz. Haynam advertised on Craigslist. His team built custom quizzes free of charge on his client’s websites. And he wrote hundreds of blog posts to attract buyers with inbound marketing.
Finally, he began writing educational articles. His tutorials showed readers how to create their own high-conversion quizzes. And Interact invited visitors to make as many as they wished, free of charge.
Before Josh and his colleagues had even graduated from college, they saw Forbes make a quiz on the platform. And when Red Lobster became an Interact customer soon afterward, their shrimp personality quiz became one of the restaurant’s most popular Facebook posts ever.
“42% of researchers use a mobile device during the B2B purchasing process.” – 2014 Google/Millward Brown Digital, B2B Path to Purchase Study
4 – Go Mobile
One in 4 millennials looks at their cell phone more than 100 times per day, according to the B2X Smartphone and IoT Consumer Trends 2017 Survey. Smart marketers targeting millennials gain an unfair advantage when they personalize and educate with a mobile-first strategy.
- The 2014 Google/Millward Brown Digital, B2B Path to Purchase Study surveyed 3,000 decision-makers and found that 42% of researchers use a mobile device during the B2B purchasing process
- Google’s 2015 data shows that 89% of people are more likely to recommend a brand after a positive experience with that brand on mobile
- 51% of smartphone users surveyed had purchased a brand they hadn’t intended to buy because the company provided useful information about the product
The YouTube Insights team from Think with Google researched smartphone users in 2015 with Ipsos Media CT. The team found that customers who watched videos on their phones were:
- 4 times as likely to watch ads
- 8 times as likely to share ads
- 6 times as likely to talk about them with their peers compared to those watching on desktop
Phones help brands get up close and personal.
After all, they’re communicating with a device their prospect keeps in his pocket (and dare we mention the ladies who stash them in their brassieres?).
Additionally, companies can customize experiences by allowing viewers to skip ads and select their favorites. According to Google, Rosetta Stone ran a campaign allowing users to pick their favorite thumbnails on mobile. After running the winners on YouTube, the language learning software company saw their channel subscribers more than double.
5 – Target the Right Decision Makers
Prepare a well-crafted message for the wrong people and you risk lengthening sales cycles and squandering time.
Google’s B2B Path to Purchase Study with Millward Brown Digital contradicted common beliefs about B2B buyers in 2014.
It’s easy to assume we need to target the C-suite to make sales. However, the study found that although 64% of C-level employees make the final buying decisions, 81% of non-C-level employees have influence over the outcome.
Also, almost half of employees researching purchases are millennials. So even if the CEO grew up before MTV, her decisions may be informed by someone coming from an iTunes world.
Content geared toward millennials and mid-level employees will make your marketing sing to a segment other companies may overlook.
Finally, there’s no substitute for getting to know your prospects in person and finding out what their day-to-day and quarter-to-quarter challenges look like. Listen to discover how you can save them time, make them money, and increase their happiness!
Which Will Bring You More Sales in 2018?
- Blog Posts and Advertorials
- Ads
- Checklists
- Whitepapers
- Case Studies
- Comparison Guides and Fact Sheets
- Video Scripts
Looking for B2B Copywriting training for your team? Write to me at judy@judyolbrych.com.
