To MOTIVATE your Audience, the Cogs in the Sales Process Must Always be Turning

Optimising your digital efforts to attract and engage audiences is a great way to get them where they need to be: your website. But getting them there is only half the battle. You need to motivate them to take action, too. Otherwise, your hard work won’t translate into clear, measurable, meaningful results.

 

So the question is this: how do you transform your marketing qualified leads (MQLs) into sales qualified leads (SQLs) and encourage them to do business with your company?

And perhaps even more importantly, how do you successfully motivate your existing customers to keep coming back for more?

 

 

Keep the sales process moving

 

The answer is simple: keep the sales process going. Sales isn’t a one-time thing. You can’t just develop a process, and then sit back and watch the transactions happen. You’ve got to keep motivating your audience, keep moving them towards the goal, and turn them into customers – and repeat customers.

The most important thing you’ll need to motivate your audience is a dedicated sales team that’s responsible for encouraging prospects to take action. Are your business’ sales activities currently being managed by marketing – or even by another department whose core responsibilities lie elsewhere? Then the chances are you’re not giving the sales the attention needed to motivate your customers.

However, one thing that’s important to remember here is that a sales team alone isn’t enough. You need a great sales team. Do you have a measurable process for converting marketing leads into sales leads? Do you have a solid handoff strategy that ensures a seamless buyer experience as they transition from MQL to SQL? If not, then developing internal processes is definitely something you should focus on.

 

How to motivate your audience

 

To motivate your audience, the cogs in the sales process must always be turning. You must always be offering something new that draws casual visitors back into the funnel and encourages conversion.

Let’s look at the three main ways you can keep the wheels turning.

 

1. Improved campaign management

Good digital marketing campaigns aren’t just created; they’re managed. After all, while your ultimate goals may remain the same, there are lots of factors that are going to change as your business moves forward.

Your audience, your resources, your budget, your expertise… none of it is set in stone.

So by focusing on campaign management – planning, tracking, analysing, and executing different ideas – you can ensure you’re always able to offer a refreshing approach that motivates audiences to get involved.

 

2. Content planning

To keep the sales process running, you need to make sure you have a constant supply of the one thing that’s going to keep it moving forward: content.

And that means developing a content strategy. The last thing you want is to find that you’ve got nothing to offer your audience at those critical turning points in the funnel.

That’s when you’ll lose them. Content planning ensures you have ideas in motion that you’re ready to execute at the right time, giving your prospects what they need to take the next step.

 

3. Seasonal planning

Think about what motivates people. We’re motivated when we see something relevant to our situation, or something that inspires us.

So it’s important to consider how relevance and inspiration differ throughout the year.

For example, you may publish content in January that motivates audiences in the post-festive season. But this content may not encourage your visitors to take action during the summer.

Seasonal planning can help, ensuring you’re triggering the right emotions to spark action at the right time.

 

Why is motivation so important?

 

Motivating new leads to take action is obviously crucial. Without that desire to convert, all you’re left with are casual visitors who are quite happy to check out your website, but have little motivation to do more. However, it’s also vital that you’re focusing on incentivising your existing customer base.

Why? Because your existing customers are powerful. It’s more cost-effective to motivate existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. Research also shows that customers typically spend more with the brands they’re loyal to, and less with ones they don’t already have a relationship with. It’s clear that motivating this particular subset of customers can help you get more from your digital marketing efforts, increase sales, and turn your content and advertising into profit-boosting activities.

Your existing customers especially aren’t going to feel inspired to take action by a stalled sales process. That’s why you need to keep it ticking over, and why it’s so important to deliver new, inspirational, encouraging content regularly. Don’t allow your sales process to be the thing that lets you down!

 

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