Do you have difficulties acquiring new leads?
Not surprisingly, 61% of marketers say that generating traffic and leads is their top challenge; and top 3 priorities of salespeople are closing more deals, improving sales funnel efficiencies, and shortening the sales cycle, from HubSpot research 2018.
How about the lead conversion rate of your company? Is it above the industry average?
First, you have to acquire leads from many different ways. In general, the average website conversion rates by industry are 2 to 10% from the study of Marketingsherpa.
After acquiring leads, how many percentages of leads will become opportunities and final customers?
The average rate to convert from leads to opportunities is 13% and then, 6% of opportunities will convert to deals according to Salesforce. Which means that leads to deals rate is only 0.78%!!!
Supposedly, most of those leads that sign up in your website or email you directly have an intention to buy, why do they leave the sales funnel halfway? Can we construct a fast track for them?
3 factors of buyer behavior that will increase your b2b sales
It seems a big question but it is not impossible to answer it. Dr. BJ Fogg of Stanford University has done a comprehensive study on behavior change. Here is Fogg Behavior Model:
Behavior=Motivation x Ability x Trigger
According to Professor BJ Fogg’s model, a behavior is a combination of three key ingredients: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger.
These are the three pillars of human behavior. In order to achieve the desired behavior, first, that person should have a certain amount of motivation and then enough ability to realize it.
And then that person with sufficient motivation and ability should be triggered as well in order to accomplish that desired behavior. Can we apply Fogg’s behavior model to improve our sales funnel efficiency?
Influencing B2B purchasing behavior. 4 ways you can influence buyer behavior and increase sales.
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Design desired behaviors step by step
Now you are looking at a list of leads in front you, you start to send an introductory email to each one. You are dreaming to have a warm feedback and then conduct a presentation and even a budget request.
Don’t fly too high yet! You should focus on a simple action first from them: I am interested in more info!
According to Fogg behavior model, you need a very high level of motivation to do a “hard-to-do” thing but instead, a low level of motivation to do an “easy-to-do” thing. That’s why we start from an easy-to-do action first.
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Motivate your target audience
All the people come to you have already a certain amount of motivation. However, the more they are motivated, the more they are willing to continue in your sales funnel. So what should we do? We can consider these three core motivators following BJ Fogg’s framework.
– Pleasure/Pain: How is your offer related to pleasure creation or pain prevention?
– Hope/fear: Do you draw a better future or avoid a worse situation for them?
– Social acceptance/rejection: Do you offer a possibility to let them be included in the social context?
A motivator may be stronger than the others in different contexts. In some sectors, companies choose known solutions (Social acceptance) to avoid failure (Fear).
In other sectors, better commercial offer (Pleasure) is stronger than long-term platform extension feasibility (Hope). Choose one or two motivations more appropriate to be inside your key messages to the target audience.
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Tailor-made affordable plans
Every lead has its own ability to do or buy one thing. The more they feel easier to do, the more they are willing to do it eventually. Answer these questions before providing an affordable plan for each lead.
– What is your time-to-market? Less than others?
– How much can they pay? More than you offer?
– How easy is it to deploy your solution?
– How easy can they use your solution?
– How fit is the proposal to the industry common sense?
– How fit is the proposal to their routine work?
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Stimulate the purchase
As said, without a proper trigger, a person will not act even with high motivation and ability to do. For example, you know a lead is buying solutions you can offer and then you send an email offering your product. That is a trigger.
There are many types of trigger, like emails, messages, calls, proposal presentation, a free demo, a personalized business study, and so on.
You can find preferred channels along the engagement process and apply it step by step. And it will be much more powerful when you combine more than one motivator.
For example, when you send a message (trigger) to a target audience saying that your solution has a promotion (1st motivator pleasure) only till the end of this month (2nd motivator fears of losing) to only 10 VIP customers (3rd motivator pleasure/social acceptance).
Whatever you are marketers or salespeople, the priority is to gather more leads and convert them 100% into your sales funnel till closing.
Use well behavior model with motivation, ability and trigger techniques. It can not only target the right person with the right message in the right way but also improve customer engagement process efficiency ultimately.
Try these effective pieces of advice above and tell me which useful practice you use in your business! Please write your comments below to help everyone! Don´t forget to follow the blog www.leadstosuccess.me if you want to check my coming posts!
P.S. Before you go, you may also be interested in the following articles:
Work less to Achieve More Sales
Optimism gets you more Business
Improve B2B Sales with Entrepreneurial Spirit
How to Sell More in Tough Times: 2 Tips B2B Salespeople can Do to Win more Customers
5 Personal Branding Tips for B2B Sales to Attract Clients
5 Strategies to Win New Clients at the Consideration Stage
POST WRITTEN BY
Sarah Lin
A strategic business development professional with +15 years proven business track record in Telecommunication and IT. She is experienced in managing key accounts and developing international business opportunities by building effective project teams. With a natural love of new ventures, this results in her ability to take risks and opportunities each time. Then her unique insights from cultural integration will definitely boom your business to the next level in this new era of globalization.
Life is a journey, only you can decide how to embrace it!
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