Are you taking this 2-step approach to find and engage customers?

Customers have taken charge of the buying process. Prior to engaging with a sales rep, many customers gather a great deal of information via their own research. When they’re ready to move forward, they’ll reach out to your sales team via a call, email or, often, interaction with your company’s website.

Here’s how to make sure your customers engage with you when they’re ready:

Develop in-depth knowledge of your customers.

• Create an ideal customer profile — Define your customers’ markets and demographics. Include industries, geography, company size, personas, and individual responsibilities. Learn your customers’ challenges, issues, needs, and interests.
• Learn where your customers go for information — Where do your customers go to learn about products, services, technologies, and solutions for their business and industry? Are there specific review sites or influencers your customers put stock in? Do they use specific social media sites such as LinkedIn, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, or others? What conferences do they attend? What networking groups or industry trade associations do they participate in?
• Figure out when your customers make decisions to buy — When are they likely to need your products or services? Is your offering seasonal? Are you targeting customers with capital equipment needs that occur on a regular cycle? Is your solution tied to current events or weather changes? Few B2B purchases are impulse purchases.

Deliver customer-focused messages that coincide with your customer’s buying cycle.

• Compose customer-focused messages — Write copy that addresses your customers’ challenges, issues and needs. Present how your solution can make their businesses better by addressing what’s important to them. Avoid talking only about your product and features.
• Deliver your message to land when your customer is receptive — Time your messaging to align with the factors or events driving your customers’ needs and decisions. Be prepared to adjust the messaging over time as the customer learns more about your product and those of your competitors. Develop multiple message sequences that each resonate with a particular stage of the customer’s buying process.
• Deliver appropriate message sequences over a period of time — Send 2-3 messages over a week, or 10-15 messages over a month. Vary the days of the week and times of day that you deliver the messages. Then, repeat a message sequence over several months until the customer shows signs of moving forward. By varying the delivery and having multiple “touches,” you’ll increase the likelihood of engaging the customer when they’re receptive to your offer. Most customers won’t respond until you’ve touched them 12-18 times.
• Leverage all your channels — Like the timing of your messages, utilize all avenues to reach your customers. Having a great website is not enough. Your targeted customer may never visit your website. Use all the channels your customer uses — emails, social media, podcasts, blogs, newsletters, whatever it takes.

Wallace Management Group Can Help

At Wallace Management Group, we’ll help you find and engage customers. Contact us at (203) 856-9400 or info@wallacemanagement.com to discuss how we can help you drive more business. Learn more at wallacemanagement.com.