The first person a buyer speaks with usually has a large impact on whether or not they make a purchase, so it is crucial for sales reps to be the first point of contact. However, when you look at the data, buyers are increasingly doing their own research before engaging with a sales representative.
In fact, a study by the CEB found that buyers who are in the early stages of the buying process—the Awareness stage—account for only 27 percent of all conversations with sellers. Conversely, buyers who are much further along in the buying process—the Decision stage—account for 73 percent of all conversations with sellers.
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27% of sales conversations with prospects happen early in the buyers journey
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73% of sales conversations with prospects happen late in the buyers journey
This trend toward buyers doing more research before engaging with sales is known as the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is a three-stage process that buyers go through when making a purchase:
1. Awareness: In this stage, buyers become aware of a problem or need that they have.
2. Evaluation: In this stage, buyers evaluate different solutions to address their problem or need.
3. Decision: In this stage, buyers decide which solution to purchase and take action to buy it.
Since buyers are increasingly engaging with sales later in the buying process, it’s important for businesses to have a strategy for not just reaching buyers at each stage of the buyer’s journey but to connect the potential buyers with sales reps as early in the buyers journey as possible.
Typically a companies website is the number one place early stage buyers go first to learn about a company, service or product. When a potential customer visits your website, they are looking for information that will help them make a purchase decision.
Site Sonar can help you understand what information your visitors are looking for and how they are interacting with your site. This data can help you improve your website and make it more effective in helping buyers take the next step to connect with a sales rep.
It makes sense to have a web form on your website for these early stage prospects to contact the sales team directly from the website, but they typically don’t fill it in.
In fact on average 98% of website visitors do not fill in a web form when they visit a web page. They may be interested in what you have to offer, but they’re not comfortable providing their contact information until they know more about your company. What’s worse is that they are also not contacting you until they know more about your competitors as well.
It is important for sales reps to connect with customers as early in the buyers journey as possible in order to provide them with the information they need to make a purchase decision.
When a potential customer visits your website but does not fill out a contact form, your sales reps can get into a conversation with them earlier in the buyers journey by directly reaching out to them. Sales reps can use Site Sonar to uncover who the anonymous visitors are, see which pages potential customers are visiting on your website, and then reach out to them through email, social media, or phone.
By reaching out to potential customers when they are interested in your company but haven’t taken the next step, you will increase your chances of converting them into customers.