The marketer’s job is to convert visitors into leads, convert leads into a qualified opportunities, and convert qualified opportunities into paying customers. The job is to shepherd prospective customers through the process - at high volume, cost-effectively, and quickly.
But what the marketer needs to do and the prospective customer wants to do aren’t always in sync.
Just because a prospect attended a webinar or downloaded a paper this morning, does not mean they’re ready to buy this afternoon.
No matter how many follow-up emails you send or phone messages you leave, they’re just not ready - not ready to buy and maybe not even ready to talk.
Delays and interruptions
Sometimes these prospects are just at the beginning of their evaluation process. They’re not sure what a SaaS solution could do for them. They’re not sure how to evaluate a solution. In fact, they may not even be sure that they need to replace their existing system.
And even if they’re further along in the process, it’s also possible that these prospects have been interrupted by other priorities. Remember, most of the time these people have day jobs (See "Your prospect has a day job.").
They run HR or Finance, or Marketing, or some other vital function in the company; they’re not assigned full-time to evaluate SaaS solutions. When more urgent issues pop-up, they put the evaluation on hold.
Moving the process along
OK, I realize that I can’t just tell you, “Be patient.” I’ve spent most of my career in marketing, so I know that’s not so helpful. You need to be doing something to push more prospects through the pipeline and to do it faster.
A few tactics may help:
Be helpful; don’t just sell. For people still near the beginning of their evaluation, they’re trying to learn more about automated solutions. Instead of just touting your solution’s features, you can help educate them.
An offer to attend a webinar or read a white paper on “Five Keys to Effectively Deploying an [HR/Finance/Marketing/Sales] Automation Solution” will probably be better received than another “Did you get my last email?” email. Establish your credibility as a trusted expert. Before they entrust some vital function of their business to an outside vendor, prospects need to trust you. Sharing examples of successful customers or talking about your experience in the market may overcome their reluctance to move ahead.
Create a sense of urgency. Prospective customers only have time to focus on a handful of priorities at any one time. You can try to push one task - “evaluate automation solution” - toward the top of their priority list. (See "Only urgent problems require solutions.")
Stay on the radar screen. Sometimes prospects do go “radio silent.” It doesn’t mean they’re not going to buy at some point, but for now at least, other priorities have gotten in the way. Sending along helpful educational material is a way to stay in front of them, so when they are ready to move ahead, you’ll be top-of-mind.
Check for gaps and bottlenecks. For most enterprise solutions, your prospects are navigating a multi-step evaluation process. It’s not an impulse buy. You should be tracking prospects’ progress through the entire process: from visitor to lead to qualified opportunity to paying customer, measuring conversions and yields from one stage to the next. You might find that prospects are getting stuck somewhere in the pipeline.
You can and you should try to accelerate the purchase process and boost conversions. But do keep this thought in mind: Prospects will act when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell.
