By Craig Klein, SalesNexus.com CEO
Remember the old Pac-Man game of the ‘80s? If you are too young or have forgotten the ‘80s, refresh your memory with Wikipedia’s description of Pac-Man. The premise of the game was for the hungry little icon to find its way through a maze. It reminds me of today’s sales leads’ ravenous consumption of information.
As a buyer, you find comfort in being educated. Think about the last time you bought something of real value. If you are like most of us, you spent time on the internet researching your options…comparing alternatives…and learning what you needed to know to feel intelligent about the decision.
Buyers of products/services are like Pac-Man
Before someone makes a serious purchase, they begin gobbling up information. When they don’t know the difference between useful, honest information and all the “hypey”, dishonest garbage that plagues the internet, it pretty much looks the same to them. They simply don’t trust any of it.
That is why your sales staff correctly complains about all the sales leads sucking. When an honest and helpful sales professional reaches out to offer good information, they are brushed off like the dirt on the sales lead shoes. It can be frustrating.
Marketing Automation Gives Pac-Man an Alternative
While your sales leads want a plethora of information – even if it includes misinformation – they would not mind being educated if they feel they can trust you. You know that trust must be earned. So how do you earn trust when the sales lead won’t even talk to you? Lead nurturing and email automation come to the rescue.
The “feeding” of the hungry Pac-Man deepens the customer relationship. The “food” is stored in and delivered from your online CRM. By offering the sales lead educational content that is useful, whether they purchase your product or not, they begin to see you as a trusted advisor instead of a stinky salesperson.
What Makes Good Pac-Man “Food”?
Again, a trip into your CRM software is needed. What you find there can vary according to how much you track in your CRM. For those who only have basic information stored, you can still find data about your ideal clients. Define your top clients by more than simply the money they spend with your company. Determine which clients send referrals…which clients are pleasant to your staff…which clients have stayed with you for a long time…etc.
Here is what you do with this list:
- Develop a composite, fictional character and call it your Ideal Client Persona.
- Look at the emails you have sent these clients to determine the questions they ask. Use those questions to develop informational content for sales leads.
- Think back before these ideal clients started with your solution. What struggles and pains did they experience? List them all and create educational content that resolves those difficulties.
How to Deliver the “Food” to the Pac-Man
Once you have content pieces that will be really useful to your sales leads, adapt your entire sales process to delivering what they demand. You already know that most sales leads are not ready for a serious conversation with your sales professionals.
So, the first step is to disqualify those leads as quickly as possible. Disqualified leads are inserted into a lead-nurturing email campaign that consistently feeds information. When the sales lead begins to trust the information you send them, they can jump out of the maze and move closer to a decision.
The emails you send are very, very brief. They don’t share information about your company, product, or service. They only sell the content piece that is waiting for them only one mouse-click away. Your sales staff can track when the emails are opened and when the sales lead clicks on the content.
Use this information to convert the Pac-Man into a Purchaser.
Craig Klein is the founder of SalesNexus.com, a leading provider of CRM, Email Marketing, and Lead-Generation Solutions for Business-2-Business Sales Teams.
