Overcoming Objections to Digital Marketing
Many traditional companies are considering adding digital marketing to their arsenal of tools. With such a momentous change comes concerns about the ramifications for the company and their employees. Much of that concern comes from the sales team. Healthy concern with big changes is natural and even helpful since it will force management to examine all the aspects of digital marketing before committing to a decision. The sales team provides the lifeblood of a company and without them, a previously successful company can fail no matter how many leads they may get. Therefore, it is very important for management to address their concerns and educate them as to how they too can benefit from digital marketing. Let’s examine some of the common concerns.
Success for a salesperson comes after many years of refining their skills. Now that they have their system working effectively, digital marketing comes along, and they have to change. This is a completely valid concern since altering their sales process can cause a reduction in sales, and that threatens the integrity of the company. So, it’s important for management to overcome this concern. They need to remind the sales team that the tactics and strategies they use now are likely not the same as when they first began their career in sales. They altered and refined their skills over many years to discover what works best and working with digital marketing is just another step in their evolution. If they can take advantage of digital marketing, they can increase their sales figures even more, and that will make the entire company happy.
Another concern is that digital marketing requires sales people to be a lot more transparent. Gone will be the days when they can offer an estimate of Another concern is that digital marketing requires sales people to be a lot more transparent. Gone will be the days when they can offer an estimate of cost based on a particular client or prospect. Instead, salespeople are locked into the price that is advertised on their website. Hindered by an inability to negotiate a price, they may worry over a potential loss of a long-standing customer. However, the sales team still has some flexibility on the price since they can offer long-term or bulk pricing and even offer discounts for loyalty. This enables them to keep their existing customers while using digital marketing to reach a previously untapped set of customers.
Many sales people subscribe to the axiom, “knowledge is power” and, like many people, they are hesitant to give up their knowledge. However, if they adopt digital marketing, most will soon realize more exposure means more leads, and more leads equal potential sales. How can digital marketing help increase sales?
For those of you that have worked with digital marketing, you know that there is a whole wealth of information that comes with it. Google Analytics can tell the sales team not only how many visitors they get to the site, but they can also see valuable metrics such as time on site, most popular pages, pages with the highest exit rate, and so forth. Why is all that info so valuable? Let’s examine each.
1.Time on site – this is a great indicator of how interested the visitor is in the site. The higher the time on site, the likelier that person is closer to converting to a real sale. The sales team can focus their efforts on these potential customers.
2.Most popular pages – if your company offers a variety of products or services, this metric will tell you which of those are the most popular and the sales team can concentrate their efforts there.
3.Pages with highest exit rate – This metric can tell us which products or services are less popular. Additionally, if you have an eCommerce site, you can see a visualization funnel of the shopping process to see where you have the highest drop-off rate. This can allow you to optimize your online sales process to increase revenue without even increasing the number of visitors to your site.
In addition to the wealth of data above, the company, and more specifically the sales team, can also gain insight into the demographics of their customers, which will allow them to better target their products or services and ultimately increase the bottom line.
Hopefully, at this point, we’ve demonstrated the benefits of digital marketing and shown that although concerns are completely natural and valid, knowing the full benefits of digital marketing can outweigh any concerns. The only remaining concern is that the sales team may be wondering, “If digital marketing can produce all these new leads, am I now obsolete?” This is a great question and the short answer is, “No”. Why? Because the human element in sales is always needed to build relationships with prospective and existing customers, confirm the accuracy of the price, determine feasibility of bulk pricing or long-term pricing, and consult on options and configurations. Most importantly, they are needed to nurture all these new leads into sales.
In short, digital marketing can provide the entire company, including the sales team, with not only a previously untapped wealth of knowledge, but also provide actionable intelligence that will inevitably increase the bottom line.
Learn more about the exciting world of digital marketing. Let PML show you how to leverage your team in the digital age. Schedule a consultation today.
