Stop Being Lazy: Get to Know Your Prospects and Target Your Marketing

As marketers, we’ve come to rely on technology to do the heavy lifting in sales. But no matter how many amazing lead generation programs or behavior marketing tools we find, nothing beats really getting to know your prospects when it comes to increasing B2B conversion.

Leverage First-Person Interviews

I find that actually talking to prospects and customers (first-person interviews, not email surveys) is the key to understanding buyers and their needs. And you may have more than one buyer involved in the buying and vendor selection process at a company, especially for more complex B2B sales.Interview as many as you can.

But go beyond your customers and prospects and talk to your internal people as well – people in sales, marketing, and customer service to get a sense what they understand about your prospects and customers.

The more people you talk to, the bigger the picture you can paint. Herb in the sales department will likely have a different perspective than Beth in customer service. Neither are more valid than the other, but both present you with opportunities to help this business in multiple ways.

Understand Personal Motivations

As most of us know, selling to a business isn’t really selling to a business; it’s selling to the people that make up that business. And while the decision to purchase, for example, engineering software, is for the company’s benefit, there is personal motivation in each decision. Will Terri’s career be negatively impacted if she doesn’t make a decision right away, or doesn’t make a good decision? Is she concerned about looking bad to her superior? Will she always select the best of breed solution to mitigate risks, or will she make a purchasing decision based on factors other than taking the safe route?

Knowing what motivates the decision-makers at a company can help you play to those concerns.

Go Off the Script

When interviewing key personnel, it’s fine to have an outline of what you want to learn, but keep your interviews flexible. Dig to uncover more. If you hear hesitation in an interviewee’s voice, gently prod to see what’s under the surface.

Listen to what’s not being said. Sometimes there’s more in what’s behind that simple yes or no that will provide better insight into the real needs of a company. And try to stay away from yes or no questions. Ask ones that encourage your interviewees to explain themselves. Don’t accept the easy, obvious answers. Push back with more questions, and you’ll be rewarded with rich data.

Use What You’ve Gleaned

The purpose of deep diving into motivation and need is to use this information to your advantage in the sales process. Now that you know a company’s real concern isn’t budget but being organized, you can propose a solution accordingly. Or if budget is the number one issue, you can offer several packages with different pricing solutions. That way, you don’t lose the sale due to its price.

Set the Precedent

If your organization is like many, everyone’s used to taking the easy route to selling and simply being satisfied with mediocre results or excuses. It’s up to you to create cultural shifts in your company that encourage everyone to think about the buyer in a more involved light. Motivate your team to ask the right questions to determine what prospects want so that you can provide it. This attitude of super-sleuthing should be evident in your company message, products, services, features, functionality…essentially everything that speaks to who your company is.

Once this is second nature for your firm, you’ll see more closed sales and better customer relationships across the board.