At VerticalResponse, our biggest challenge is to convert a business user to a free trial of our product. We thought it might be time to give some tips on how we do it here at VR.
B2B communication is a much different type of marketing than
Business-to-Consumer (B2C), so it's important to understand the nuances
when creating marketing campaigns.
Target Audience
Knowing what
"types" of people you're marketing to and the language to use when
addressing them is crucial for effective B2B marketing. Who in the
company is responsible for the purchasing decision? Is it a two-step
sale?
For instance, if you're selling a technical
product to a company but your target audience is the Marketing
Department, you might want soften the feature set you're selling and
focus on the benefits and cost savings.
Writing B2B Copy
When marketing to businesses, concise but detailed
copy always works the best. Avoid the "fluff" and make sure that you
provide enough information to keep your readers interested. Keep your
copy direct, informative and professional.
The best thing you can do is to easily convey how your products or solutions can reduce costs or
increase productivity. it's the
best way to win new business.
The offer
The two-step approach is extremely popular in B2B marketing. Offering something of value for free is common. You are trying to gain the trust of the businesses you're emailing with - now make them an offer they can't refuse!
What is the two step approach?
Step 1: Marketing to your prospect to get their interest and
their name and permission for future marketing.
Step 2: Marketing to
them to close the deal.
For example here at VerticalResponse , we put
our money where our mouth is, we allow anyone to take a "free test
drive" of our product, which gives them all the functionality of our
service, but without any financial commitments. RISK FREE is still a great tool for converting customers since they are
able to "try before they buy" and ask questions to make sure our
service is a good fit for their needs.
Many of our customers have told us that this was the #1 reason they signed on with us since they were able evaluate our
product on their own terms. Once they registered and became subscribers
to our service, we were then able to send them follow up marketing
campaigns to keep them interested and educated about what we had to
offer.
Forget the free pen it's not going
to distinguish your company from the masses so it's not only important
to target your marketing campaigns intelligently, but also make sure
that any add-ons are appropriate for the audience that you’re dealing
with.
The Landing Page: "The Closer"
Once
the recipient clicks through to your website, you'll want to have a
"trackable" landing page for them to hit so you can evaluate the
behaviors of your new prospects. The landing page should PAYOFF the
features and benefits of your products or services. It should be
presented as a quick summary or "overview" rather than a long and
detailed description.
Try using a graphic or picture,
and some highlights from your email content on the landing page to
carry over the theme from the initial email message. You also might
want to "test" different versions of your email campaign with different
landing pages to see which links or which pages seem to yield the best
conversion rate.
Timing is Everything
The
timing of your marketing campaign is crucial. From the hour of the day
(time zone differences) to the day of the month and even the day of the
year (holidays, etc) there are always certain factors that can affect
your campaign performance.
You might find Monday mornings might not work best because your recipient's
in-boxes will be too full from mail received over the weekend, you don't want your offer lost in the mix. You might find mid-week
campaigns to perform well, so mail Tuesday through Thursday
morning, staying clear of the weekends. There is no universal rule in
terms of the perfect time to mail because it all depends on your
business and when you think your recipients are most likely to be at
their computers.
Case Studies Work!
One
of the most common questions we hear from prospective customers is:
"Who else does VerticalResponse do business with?" Customer
testimonials and case studies are powerful resources when trying to
sign a new client. Make sure they are posted on your site. VerticalResponse posts them all over, even on the home page VerticalResponse. Positive comments from a client who is in a similar industry as
your prospect can influence their decision to work with your company as
well.
If you are currently providing a valuable
service to an organization that has similar needs, then you'll surely
want to make your prospective client aware of this during the sales
process.
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