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This blog post is about three things:
- The 4 best sales resources: Fillers, Movers, Shakers & Starters
- Two Webinar Links: Ivana Taylor & Keith Ferrazzi
- Trigger Buzz #11: Tonight: Sales and marketing alignment
The 4 Best Sales Resources
In my last blog post I asked the question what are the best resources to put behind a form so sales can connect with decision makers at the right times.
- Content decision makers want access to once they experience a ‘want’ Trigger Event and start thinking about changing suppliers
- Content that shows decision makers they can afford to change
- Content that shows decision makers how they can justify their purchase
- Content that starts them down the path of becoming your customer
One of the companies that gets this more than anyone else I know is Eloqua. They call the first three types of content funnel fillers, funnel movers, and funnel shakers. They even go so far as to classify members of their marketing team the same way – That’s one of the reason’s I chose them as my #2 Sales 2.0 tool.
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The first type of content is the most important because once a decision maker experiences a want Trigger Event they start defining the problem and start seeing products and services that then are used to design the solution. Miss this step and you can be locked out of the rest of the funnel
The first type of content answers questions decision makers have when they have a bad experience with their current supplier or take on a new job (or responsibility) and are curious about what they could be doing.
The second type of content shows decision makers the different ways they can afford to make the purchase
The third type of content helps decision makers justify their decision to their superiors, subordinates, and potentially shareholders.
The last type of content is designed to have the decision maker start going down the path of becoming your customer as soon as possible in the funnel above. Some people think free trials are one way to do this. What I don’t like about free trials is that the decision maker does not get that attached to the solution because they know they will lose all the time and effort the invested once the trial is over.
My preference is to harness the potential of the freemium model – Offer something free or at low cost and started them down the path of becoming your customer knowing that when the decision maker experiences an afford Trigger Event they have already invested in learning to do things your way and you are now highly likely to be the supplier of choice – because decision makers are very busy and see limited value in spending the same time learning about your competition.
I hear all the time “this only works for small purchases and in the B2C world”. When I hear this I only have one thing to say – BULLS*&#! If I have learned one thing in my time as a top performing sales professional and working with a number of customers – First in wins more times than anyone else. So the game is how do you get in first to define the problem, design the solution, and position yourself as the logical choice.
Different types of content that can be use are templates, white papers, case studies, webinars, videos – two of my favorite video solutions are Brain Shark (here is how I use it) and Visible Gains. I recently learned about Visible Gains so I have not completed my first video with them yet. Here is an excellent example of the power of Visible Gains – notice how the viewer is empowered to choose the direction they want to go next. This information is tracked and allows you to follow up more effectively.
I could write all day about this but I’m a better talker than I am a writer so I am doing a one hour webinar on this topic with Ivana Taylor of Do It Yourself Marketing which is being hosted by my favorite survey tool Survey Analytics.
Join Ivana Taylor from DIYMarketers and Craig Elias – the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and Trigger Event Marketing™ – as they join forces to give you a fresh perspective on sales and marketing alignment and show you:
- Which digital assets attract the most profitable prospects
- Where to place content so it drives the best prospects to your website
- When are the three best times to pass a web-based lead to your sales team
- How to get sales to give you the data you need so they get the leads they want
- How to create a simple seven step system that aligns your sales and marketing efforts
- Which sales and marketing research results in the greatest payoff for you and your sales team
You don’t want to miss this FREE Online Event at 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM PDT on Tuesday, April 12, 2011.
Register even if you can’t make the live event because all registrants will receive links to the recording and handout from the event.
Click the button below to sign up now!
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http://bit.ly/Smarketing
For those of you who can’t wait until the webinar you can participate in tonight’s TriggerBuzz – see below for more details.
The second webinar that I mention above is the one I did with Keith Ferrazzi and T.A. McCann that has almost 2,000 people register for it. The recording can be viewed at – http://blog.gist.com/2011/03/17/video-recording-the-power-of-connecting-webinar/
Trigger Buzz #11 – Sales and Marketing Alignment
Tonight’s Trigger Buzz (Tuesday March 29sh @ 6:00PM PST | 9:00PM EST) is on how can you align your sales and marketing efforts to attract and close the best customers?
Details on TriggerBuzz and how it works can be found at http://ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz.
Have an eventful week!
Craig