Digital Business Development
Your Customers Are Shopping Without You
The traditional sales process used to be that a sales representative connected with a prospect and led them through the discovery and education process that hopefully resulted in the prospect becoming a customer. Is this still what happens at your company? Is it still working?
Today your prospects are shopping without you. They may identify themselves, and when and if they do, they come to the table self-educated about your products; you’re competitors’ products, and your attitude toward business. They might even possibly know more than your sales representatives.
Today, people don’t want to be sold to, they want to be engaged, and then they may buy from you. Some recent studies indicate for B2B companies, 80% of the time the buyer finds the seller and it is much higher than that for B2C companies.
The Reason: Three Technologies Reaching Mass Adoption Simultaneously are Changing Everything
As part of my continuing education, I am constantly doing research on the future of marketing. I have spent the last several months focused on why everything has changed so much. To start with, there has been a dramatic change in how people communicate, learn, and act.
How did this happen and how did it happen so fast? Well the mass adoption of three technologies (broadband Internet, mobile Internet and social media) all happening simultaneously have created a perfect storm—a rare combination of circumstances that has forever changed the way we buy, sell, and live.
The Internet has been around for what seems to be a long time now, but it is only recently that people have seen broadband Internet as a must-have at home as well at the workplace. Marketing rapidly adapted to that change and started to move to online advertising and use of video like never seen before.
People now “need” not “want” mobile Internet at high speeds as well. Combine these two elements with the reality that you are not a player in this world unless you have some type of social media presence, and you have the perfect storm.
First Seek to Influence, Then Engage with a Consistent Message
Promotional marketing today is all about influencing people before you get to engage them. I refer to this as Digital Business Development. If you are a marketing professional you’re quite familiar with the 4 P’s of Marketing (Product, Price, Place and Promotion).
In order to consider promotional marketing in today’s world as Digital Business Development, you need to add a fifth element—PEOPLE; not only your people but the people who make the decisions on whether or not to purchase your product.
Digital Business Development and targeted messaging should be the key business strategy for forward thinking companies today. Targeted messaging provides you the means to shape opinions and motivate behavior. Many of the Fortune 500 companies have already developed messaging strategies and implemented them effectively in the market. But, they have large marketing budgets and can afford the new skill sets required to develop and implement this type of strategy. These companies are innovators and early adopters of a holistic communication strategy. Some mid-market companies fall into the early adopter category, but it is by no means mainstream yet. This means that small and medium businesses can achieve significant competitive advantage by developing and implementing a communication strategy ahead of the curve.
Frozen Fire is a Dallas internet marketing and video production company that helps companies harness the most powerful aspect of modern marketing—the internet—to engage customers in memorable and meaningful ways. Ways that ignite sales and business growth. Contact us to learn how we can help your business.