How to engage your prospects so they want to buy from you

Today’s buyers work in new ways

Many of today’s buyers are making most of their purchasing decisions on the internet. They will approach the supplier, not the other way round. In fact, people have often found their preferred supplier long in advance of needing to use them.

Many companies have not yet caught up with this change in buying behavior, especially if they are involved in business sales.

Today’s sales activity often does not take the modern buyer into account

Content marketing is great way to create useful sales meetings

It is still focused on the traditional buying journey. It assumes that a buyer will be ready to purchase after a phone call or e-mail. But this is rarely the case.

Often, the sales person approaches the buyer at the wrong time. Initial contact may be made, but the prospect won’t be purchasing any print for several weeks or even months. The sales person then has to stay front of mind for the buyer (without annoying them) or be forgotten when it’s time for them to purchase.

But there’s a greater challenge for traditional sales people. Often a buyer has found a company that they like online. They are already engaged with them. It’s hard for the sales person to break into that relationship in a single call or e-mail.

So how do we overcome these issues? The answer is to engage with your prospects online. Provide information that your prospects will be interested in. Ensure that they are keeping a lookout for what you share.

It’s time to start content marketing

Successful content marketing relines on three things:

• sharing information that interests your prospects
• sharing this information where your prospects hang out
• sharing this information regularly

Let’s look at each one in turn.

Share information that interests your prospects

The right information to share is rarely about the technical side of print. It’s more likely to be telling people why they should use print. It’s likely to feature some great case studies. You should also consider sharing non-print related information that is still of interest to your customers.

Remember, you do not have to create all this information yourself. It’s usually fine to share content that other people have written as long as you give them credit and link back to their site.

You also want to maximize the chances of people seeing this information. That’s why the next issue is so important.

“It’s time to start content marketing” https://t.co/cG916gYBaH

— Matthew Parker (@PrintChampion) April 9, 2016

Share information where your prospects hang out

You need to know where to find your prospects. It’s no good having a highly active Twitter account if none of your prospects use Twitter. You might be better off making sure you have a presence in the trade press. Or events might give more profitable results.

Whatever your decision, it’s important to measure the results. Remember, buyer activity changes over time. Wherever you decide to share information, there’s a third rule.

Share information regularly

It’s important to stay front of mind for buyers. This won’t happen if you only share information once every few months.

The exact level of regularity depends on which channel you use. I post on Twitter several times a day (this can easily be achieved with automated scheduling). But it would only be necessary to send out a printed newsletter once or twice a month.

It’s time to take action!

Here are three things you can do to start your journey into content marketing:

• find a piece of content that is of interest to your prospects
• share on one channel
• learn content marketing in detail by investing in

Today’s buyers are changing. Make sure you are changing too.