4. Understand their needs and where they are coming from.
Again ― this is something that many companies just nail. You can tell from the moment you land on their homepage that they get you and what you need.
Then there are other companies. They mean well, but they don’t seem to really know what you need, even when they say they have what you need. Sometimes, they don’t even appear to be clear on what they offer.
Knowing where a prospect is coming from would include:
- Having really done your buyer persona homework. You have figured out who your buyers are (based on data, not opinions).
- Leveraging your sales and customer support staff’s knowledge. You understand the unique needs of each of those groups.
- Developing content and resources (calculators, assessment tools, videos, case studies, and whitepapers) that are solely for each group.
Some of you ― the truly world-class ones ― have created those resources with so little bias and with such good supporting research that prospects can truly trust what you say. Bravo, all you companies who do this. May your tribe increase.
5. “We don’t do that” is a legitimate answer.
If your company doesn’t do certain things, don’t conceal that information. It’s easier on prospects if we just know up front, without hassle, that your company/service/software doesn’t do certain things.
Don’t make us have to quiz you to reveal that information.
Here’s an example:
Last night I was researching survey tools for an upcoming project. I wanted to add tracking code to the final confirmation page of the survey, so I could see which channels (email, advertising, Twitter, LinkedIn) generate the most completed surveys.
Survey tool #1’s site had a help section. When I searched for “’tracking code’ ‘custom page’”, I immediately got a detailed how-to article with screenshots that explained exactly how to do what I wanted.
They even described some other cool things I could do with the tracking. And I could use Google Analytics ― a free, widely-used tool ― to do the job.
Great!
In survey tool #2, the help section was hard to find. Multiple searches about tracking codes revealed nothing. So I contacted customer service.
To their credit, someone got back to me within an hour (this is unusual and they deserve major credit for it).
But the person who responded basically said they had no idea what I was talking about and then wrapped up the email with a cheery pitch.
So I replied, and asked my question two different ways. With as much clarity as I could muster.
They emailed me back (again, within an hour) saying, “No, our software can’t do that.”
I get why companies might want to cover up if their software or service doesn’t do basic things a user might expect it to do. But leaving a vacuum of information like that, then making it hard to confirm there is no functionality for that, just makes life harder. Unnecessarily harder.
This isn’t an isolated incident, either. It’s the second time in as many weeks this sort of thing has happened to me.
When I was researching which graphic design outsourcing service to use, I had a specific question about whether or not they would lay out an email for me. That is, I wanted them to set up copy and images to assemble the email message within my email service provider account, using a pre-defined template.
At first I got a breezy, “Yes ― we do emails! We do anything!”
Still not sure that that was a yes, I asked again.
After four emails back and forth, it was finally revealed that no, they won’t do that. Even though my question had never changed. Their rep ignored what I asked and said yes without really reading my question. They even said that much in their last message.
(Of course, if this is the roughest thing I have to deal with, life is pretty good.)
But it’s a pain to do business like this. It turns prospects off.
I would have had a more positive view of both companies if they had just made that information easy to find. If they had told me upfront, “No, we don’t do that.”
6. Your messaging needs to be clear.
Buyers are zooming through hundreds of pages of marketing collateral, trying to develop a short list of products that could solve their problem. They are looking to winnow out companies that can’t help them.
Weak messages, particularly on your home page, can repel potential buyers.
As Gordana Stok says in her article, “5 Things B2B Buyers Want Your Content To Do”
“The short-form messages on your home page and product-landing page help convince buyers whether it’s worth their time to take a deeper look at your solution.
To get your value proposition under 100 words and ensure it truly resonates with buyers, you need to be absolutely certain that you understand what they’re looking for in the first place.”
It’s not just Gordana saying this, either. In a research study from Ko Marketing, “Lack of message” was the #1 thing that B2B buyers said annoyed them and made them likely to leave a site. (Note that lack of contact info, mentioned earlier, was #2.)