Does your website and sales team work together? Or, is your online presence more like an online brochure that seems like a distraction – or worse, a competitor – for the men and women who bring you new accounts?
It’s unfortunate, but a lot of small and medium-sized businesses don’t have anything approaching a cohesive strategy when it comes to blending online and off-line campaigns. Often, their websites are completely disconnected from other live sales efforts. They either haven’t considered the ways they could benefit from using modern online tools to boost sales, or have put off these upgrades because they think they don’t need them.
That’s unfortunate, because a good website should be your sales team’s best friend. It should not only provide them with new avenues to reach clients, but also support them when they’re working in person, over the phone, or in the field. While some companies are fighting this trend in following behind the curve, others are embracing the idea of using traditional sales strategies and human contact with digital age convenience. Want to take a guess at which group is coming out ahead?
Let’s look at a few of the reasons successful sales producers will always come to love a website that has been created with their needs in mind…
A Strong Website Can Generate Leads All the Time
As we noted in a recent post, your business website should be designed and marketed with the goal of delivering sales opportunities to your phone, office, or inbox on a daily basis. In many business scenarios, that means having interested prospects call and or submit their information online so a live member of your sales team can follow up.
No matter how effective your group is, they can’t be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. However, as any experienced sales professional can tell you, prospective clients and customers sometimes decide to research solutions after business hours and during holidays or weekends. In other words, your website can be helping them to close more deals even when they can’t be at their desks.
A Website Can Help to Pre-Sell New Clients or Customers
Wouldn’t it be nice if the leads that did come into your company were fired up and ready to set appointments? Imagine receiving inbound phone calls from buyers who knew exactly which products or services they wanted and knew what to expect realistically in terms of a price and delivery time.
With the right content – including downloadable reports, video reviews, buying guides, and other pieces of information – you can use your website to “pre-sell” prospects on what you have to offer. Then, your sales team can work on generating custom quotes and making sure that every buyer finds the perfect solution.
Your Business Website Needs to be Paired with a CRM System
In addition to generating more leads and helping your salespeople to close and faster, your website can also help them keep tabs on buyer relationships. That’s because you can use plug-ins and advanced CRM systems to integrate schedules, marketing offers, and even specific buyer activity.
What does this mean in the real world? It could allow prospects to schedule face-to-face appointments using a computer smart phone. Or, it might mean that one of your reps can pull up someone’s account history with a single click. You might even track “touches” so your salespeople can see which pieces of content a prospect has viewed and how recently they have visited your website. Each of these could help them close more business and provide better service.
A Website Can Assist With Sales Presentations and Custom Quotes
Many businesses see websites and sales professionals as appealing to different kinds of customers, but your bottom line takes a big jump forward when you imagine the ways they can work together. For instance, your website is a natural place to store digital documents, video presentations, and programming that can create custom quotes and moments.
Using these kinds of tools, along with mobile apps and CRM features, your sales team can use your website as a resource that they can turn to during trade shows, live demos, and other everyday situations. They can even use them to stay in touch while on the road or away for vacation.
You Can Use a Website to Automate Some Orders and Customer Service Tasks
So far, we’ve been focusing on the ways that a website can help expand the reach of your sales team. However, it’s also worth noting that you can use online tools to make them more efficient. That’s because there are undoubtedly tasks your salespeople perform that don’t generate revenue and can be handled over the web.
As an easy example, you can automate certain types of repeat orders so customers can place them online without having to contact your employees directly for minor purchases. Or, you could set up account management tools that let buyers change things like addresses, phone numbers, and delivery details in the same way. That saves time for your sales people, leaving them with more hours to find accounts and generate fresh revenue.
Want to Use Your Website to Boost Sales?
Usually, when a website isn’t generating leads or supporting a strong sales team it’s because a business isn’t getting great service from their web design partner. So, if you feel like you aren’t getting the returns you could be from your web presence, this might be the perfect time to make a change. Contact MAXBURST – New York’s web design and internet marketing leader. We can schedule a consultation that might change the way you think about the power of the company’s website forever.
