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A Selling Revolution: Convert Sales People to Web Marketers Part Four – Follow-Up and Stay-in-Touch Programs for Web-Based Sales

Web marketing is tremendously powerful to not only create sales leads, but also to cost-effectively stay in touch with a large universe of potential customers at a very low cost. However, the best lead generation in the world is meaningless unless salespeople are prepared to make multiple contacts with their prospects.

Most Salespeople Give Up Too Early

Research has shown that prospects need multiple contacts before they are ready to buy. Most salespeople fail because they do not communicate enough or stay in touch with prospects until they are ready to buy. Salespeople often give up because of assumptions they make about prospects and the amount of work needed to close a sale. It is not enough to train salespeople to generate leads from the Web without also learning how to cost effectively stay in touch until the sale is closed.

Stay in Touch Methods

Staying in touch with prospects revolves around online content distribution. The major rule of thumb is that the content must be relevant and of high interest to the prospect or it will be ignored. Content must either improve the quality of life or help people do their job more effectively. All content should end up on the company blog or Website. Here are a six examples of content distribution methods.  Email Newsletters – Collect email names and send newsletters monthly.  Webinars – Develop a free 45-minute Webinar to present quarterly.  Podcasting – Reach a massive audience for free on iTunes with 10 minute audio segments.  Blogs – Keep a running journal of value-added content that informs and tells a story.  Website Content Updates – Develop a process of regular updates to your Website.  FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter – Communicate small nuggets of information and build discussions.   CRM and Google Analytics

CRM tools such as SaleForce.com can help track content distribution and provide data on prospect responses. Google Analytics reports on which content is most popular and provides a wealth of information on the results of content distribution strategies. Also, search engines love content. These strategies will not only help you stay in touch with prospects, but also improve your organic search engine rankings. The goal is to focus on automation and reaching a maximum number of people with content they want to read and share with others.

Action Plan

Here is an action plan to get you started.

  • Develop a Web Marketing Plan that integrates sales functions with Web marketing.
  • Include in this plan a strategy and process for content distribution online.
  • Develop a list of Web marketing resources for training.
  • Set time aside each day to read and learn about Web marketing.
  • Subscribe to at least five great Web marketing newsletters.
  • Visit www.IntuitiveWebsites.com for more resources.

Learning Resources

  • FourStepProcess.com
  • IntuitiveWebsites.com (see the resources section)
  • HubSpot.com  Shop.org (great email newsletter)
  • Google (click on business solutions)
  • SethGodin.com
  • Don’t Make Me Think (a book by Steve Krug)
  • Hundreds of additional resources can be found online.

Thomas Young

Thomas Young is the CEO and Founder of Intuitive Websites. He is a consultant, award winning Vistage speaker and author of “Winning the Website War” and “Sales and Marketing Alignment.” Tom has helped thousands of companies succeed online and has over 25 years digital marketing experience.