In my last blog post, I discussed the fact that sales and marketing teams largely come from a different set of internal “cultures,” cultures whose viewpoints and and attitudes are often at odds with each other. In Part 2, I want to take a closer look at this concept, because as sales and marketing teams…

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Can you lose a sale simply by having a bad Web offer?

I think we’ve all had the experience of following a link someone sent us on Twitter or Facebook only to discover that it’s just another poorly disguised attempt at hucksterism.

You land on the page and get bombarded by a long, endless page of marketing drivel, punctuated with flashing neon sign graphics, and a late-night infomercial vibe.

While most B2B Web marketers are much more professional in their approach than this, it doesn’t mean that the concept of “the Bad Offer” can’t apply.

No matter the context, a Bad Web Conversion Offer slows down the sale, gives potential buyers a bad taste, puts them off, or even sends a good buyer to a competitor.

So what makes a Bad Web Offer?

  • It doesn’t provide any value to the visitor.
  • The process to get the perceived value (the whitepaper, webinar, free trial) takes too long, or requires too much user input.
  • There’s no compelling difference between your offer and what they could get elsewhere.
  • The presentation is sub-par, unprofessional, difficult to navigate, or just plain boring . . . .
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whistle-nIn yesterday’s blog post, we discussed the idea of considering a sales appointment as an extension of a regular corporate meeting. We looked at understanding the type of meeting you should engage in and the purpose for it, and the first of two critical components, having an agenda.

Today’s post will cover the need for a meeting to have an effective referee, and the culture you should establish for your sales appointments with your prospects.

In Review:

Part I

1. Decide whether an appointment is about alignment or creation.
2.1. “A meeting has two critical components: [one of them is] an agenda.”

Part II

2.2. “A meeting has two critical components: [the other one is] a referee.”

First, let’s be clear: the onus always falls on you, the sales rep, to be the referee of a meeting, because you control the flow of information . . . .

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phone-screen-smAuthor Michael Lopp, blogging under the pseudonym “Rands in Repose,” presented an outstanding treatise this morning on how to run a meeting that brilliantly captures the essence of your average corporate pow-wow—but also contains some striking parallels to sales appointment setting.

What is a “sales cycle” after all, if nothing more than a series of “mini-meetings,” each designed to progress the sale and provide value for both parties?

Not every process works the same obviously, but as Lopp states, a good corporate meeting should decide whether it is about alignment or creation, should have both an agenda and a referee, and should avoid creating a culture of “having meetings for having a meeting’s sake.”

And all three ideas are eminently applicable to sales appointments . . . .

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Sales industry researchers CSOInsights stated recently that after a “flat” budget year in 2009, marketing budgets are increasing in 2010 and beyond, and that the top three items for additional budget allocations were: Web site design/content (65% stated they were increasing budget allocation) Email marketing (54%) Web search optimization (51%) Great news, right? Good to…

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Lots of great resources have addressed the question,”What, if any differences exist between the style and content of an SEO versus a PPC landing page?”

SEO.com states that a typical SEO and PPC landing page should serve the appropriate purpose, contain the right mix between content and call-to-action, and provide links to outside information and to the main home page of your Web site.

SEOBook.com says the only major difference between an SEO and PPC page is that the call to action should come early, and much more often on a PPC page— but that otherwise the concept is the same.

But how does this formula change from a B2C site, where the goal is typically an instant transaction, to a B2B company site, where a prospect’s buying decision may still be weeks or months away?

An outstanding article by Proteus B2B states that B2B decisions are “driven by risk and the avoidance thereof.” As a result, a B2B landing page must be more complete, holistically-oriented, and must present a clear, competitive, consistent message through content, style, and feel . . . .

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I’m going to share a little secret about a mistake we made about a year and a half ago when we redesigned our Web site.

On the surface it was a beautiful redesign. Oh, so very beautiful.

Slick, shiny, “the new hotness,” slick, and slick (did I mention it was slick?).

And it killed our Web site conversion rate.

After two months of awful performance, we finally bit the bullet and furiously rolled the old site back out, and started from scratch . . . .

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Most of the common marketing and sales and metrics—click-throughs, impressions, sales cycle, revenue per deal—don’t really need an explanation. But there are two metrics where a lot of companies we’ve worked with have holes in their sales process.

  • Response time to first contact on Web leads:

    • How soon after a new Web lead comes in does a sales rep make the first contact attempt, and how long after it came in did they actually make contact? Every single piece of data we’ve ever researched shows that for Web-generated leads, immediate response is crucial . . . .

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