4 ways to lose a sale and how to fix it
Published May 29, 2013 11:43 AM
|
Updated May 29, 2013 11:43 AM
1 Min Read
Using social media without a plan
Many professionals have discovered that delivering consumer-friendly, useful content through social media is an effective means of attracting followers and cultivating prospects. However, one of the biggest problems with how businesses use social media is that they post a lot of high level, one-way communication with no call to action. Having a call to action in your posts leading prospects back to a website designed to capture leads is critical for producing tangible results through social media.
Indifference in interactions
No matter what your profession, its likely youve got a lot of competition. For consumers, shopping includes researching, and theyre comparing services, expertise and experience before deciding who best deserves their patronage. If your interactions with prospects fail to wow them, they will quickly move on. But most professionals dont have a storyboarded plan for giving prospects that experience, which is what is needed for consistent results. An automated system that delivers carefully planned interactions is a great way to achieve this.
No lead capture on your website
This is a huge problem! Many sites have no strategy for capturing information about visitors to the site, such as an email address. As a result, businesses spend thousands of dollars driving traffic to their website, but capturing none of the prospects information. As a result, those prospects come to the site and leave and the business never knows they were there. A free report, or series of reports or videos with useful information based on your expertise are good lead capture tools. Buyers today turn to the web for information while doing research, so that's what you should give them. Offering free resources in exchange for a small bit of information is a great way to do that.
Advertising calls to action that are all-or-nothing
Most sales people offer only a face-to-face meeting or a telephone appointment as their call to action in their advertising. But thats asking a lot of prospects who are simply exploring options and arent yet ready for that level of commitment. Those are leads that, three to six months from now, may become sales but theyre lost early in the process. Instead, offer a less committed option such as download this free report in exchange for their information for follow up.
