The down turn in the economy has made selling products and services for every company more difficult. Businesses and consumers are more heavily scrutinizing their purchases and trying to ensure that they are receiving maximum value for their buying dollar. So it only makes sense that many companies will struggle and eventually fail as they are not able to persuade purchasers for their products and services. Much of the failure is not due to the down economy, but has much more to due with the lack of value and quality in the services that are being offered. Many companies that will fail will blame the down economy, never taking the moment to assess their value proposition and adjust their business accordingly.
The other side of the down economy is that there are still companies buying services, they are just looking for value. This is the same buying process that businesses should adhere to even in good times. So the recession has forced businesses to return to the core practices that will make them successful regardless of the state of the economy. It is not that businesses are not spending money on marketing and advertising, they are now just spending money where they are most likely to get the best return on their investment. This is partly leading to the shift from traditional marketing to online marketing as well as the need for companies to prove that they can provide the results that they promise.
This is where most marketing agencies fail to sell online services. There is a famous saying in traditional marketing that says “50% of your marketing spend is wasted, you just have to figure out which 50% that is.” This practice will not work in online marketing because the ability to track and measure results is much easier than it is for traditional media. For that reason, when selling your services to companies, marketing agencies now must move towards quantifying results, which was not a practice in the past. Marketing in traditional media often focused on the quality of the creative which is subjective and focused little attention on the results that the creative produced. For traditional marketing agencies to successfully make the shift to online marketing agencies, they must understand and embrace the reality that marketing is quickly becoming more heavily science that art. That is also a shift from the past.
There are several areas that I believe marketing agencies must focus on to successfully sell their services to prospective companies:
1. Many prospects do not understand online marketing, so you must educate them - Even if the prospect is familiar with the buzz words or have dipped their toe into the waters of online marketing, most really don’t understand the potential reach and results of online marketing that is well done. This is where you have to educate them. That does not mean put a bunch of numbers in front of them that will cause their eyes to gloss over, but some realistic numbers of the potential number of people who are searching for their services, where their website currently ranks, and the costs and possible returns from their marketing efforts. This will help them as they build their case to create budget for online marketing. Although as online marketers we know it can be effective, companies a kind of reluctant to quickly move their marketing dollars from traditional to online due to the uncertainty and the unknown. If you educate them properly, it will increase your chances of a sell and allow you to have a conversation with the prospect in which you are clear on their online marketing understanding.
2. You must have a Unique Selling Proposition - Every time that you make a pitch to a prospect, you should know that there are 20 other companies that will contact your prospect THAT WEEK! Companies are sold to endlessly. To be successful, you must set yourself apart. That is why your Unique Selling Proposition is so important. Give the prospect a very clear reason of why they should choose you to provide the service. You are competing with every company that is over promising and under-delivering and adding skepticism to the industry. Ask your prospects how many times per week they hear “Guaranteed #1 rankings” or “Guaranteed first page rankings.” It happens all day long! Your proposition is that you can provide them with measurable results(sales, leads, phone calls, e-mail subscribers, etc) that they can track back to a real ROI. Tell them rankings is only the means to an end which is more leads and more sales. Focus on the lead generation or sales and that will help to set you apart from the rest of the snake oil that is being sold in online marketing.
3. Don’t be the jack of all trades – You have to focus on something. One of the major problems that I have seen many traditional marketing agencies face when selling online services is that they say they do everything. Direct mail, collateral, trade shows, radio, tv, PPC, SEO, web analytics, billboards, kitchen sinks, etc. The downside to this is that most marketing agencies are not large enough that they could realistically do all of this well. So what ends up happening is the prospect is unsure of your identity. At large companies, the traditional marketing is often separate from the online marketing and handled by different people. Therefore, making the “jack of all trades” pitch to the person that does not handle that marketing will often fall on deaf ears. In my opinion, you have to focus on particular types of marketing so that you can scale and become the best of the best. As the saying goes, the “jack of all trades is the master of none.”
4. Use technology to close the gap between lead generation and sales. – Lastly, I think the biggest challenge/opportunity for online marketers is closing the gap between lead generation and sales and tracking the results. Many companies are starting to do this using crm’s like Salesforce or SugarCRM, but most of them do not set the system up properly, therefore the data that is derived is almost useless. Most companies have very little idea what marketing efforts generated their sales and closing that gap is where I believe the biggest opportunity is over the next few years. Marketing agencies that can close the gap will have the data to support their results and for the companies to increase their marketing spend with the agencies.
Selling any service is a challenge, but eliminating some of the challenges that I have outlined will set you apart from 90% of your competitors and provide your company with the best chance to close new business. As more and more data becomes available, it will become that much more important that the data is used to make wise decisions for your clients marketing dollars. Make sure you are the company to help them solve their challenge.
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