Are You Following the Proper Steps to Close Digital Sales?

ABC is an acronym for a lot of things. If you’re learning CPR, they teach you ABC to look for Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. If you’re a parent, ABC could mean “Another Blowout Coming”. In the broadcasting world, ABC stands for American Broadcasting Company. In sales, ABC is most commonly known as “Always Be Closing”, and in this case, ABC isn’t as easy as 1-2-3, so let’s look at some ways to make it a little easier when pitching and closing your digital prospects.

In a typical sales process, there are six steps:

• Prospecting
• Preparation
• Presentation
• Overcoming Objections
• Closing the Sale
• Follow UpFor prospecting, some great tools that you can use when looking for digital clients are Ghostery, SpyFu.com, and Facebook. Ghostery is an app you can download on your phone, or a paid extension that you can install on your browser. What you’re using this for is to see if that prospect has any advertising trackers. If they don’t have any advertising trackers, that is a good prospect to start from the beginning and mention some easier products like Display Ads. If they do have some trackers, this is a great opportunity to talk about some of the more advanced products like Social Mirror ads, Amazon, or Mobile Conquesting.With Spyfu.com, you can look and see what some of the most popular keywords are that people are searching for for that business. This can help you get that first initial meeting with the prospecting by using a valid business reason like “We can target keywords related to your business such as (insert keywords found from SpyFu.com).  We do this by showing your online ads to people who visit webpages that contain your keywords. Can I schedule a meeting with you to talk about this and some ideas to market your business?”

  For Facebook, you can actually see if a business is currently running ads on Facebook. If you go to their Facebook business page and go to Page Transparency, it will show it they are currently running ads or not.

  

  If we take it one step further, we can see where they are running ads. If you click “Go to Ad Library”, now you can see they are running on Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Audience Network, and Facebook Messenger. If they are not using all the platforms that are available, this is where you can use your valid business reason to talk about Facebook and all the platforms that are available. “I was on your (Facebook) or (Instagram) page today and I was wondering if you were taking advantage of all the new ways Facebook now has to target your ads with products like Carousel ads with click to call options or Lead Ads, and run these ads not just on Facebook but on Facebook Audience Network which features thousands of top apps Facebook has partnered with, Facebook’s Messenger app, and even where we can take list of potential or past customers and target them with your Facebook ads. Can I schedule a meeting with you to talk about this and some ideas to market your business?” If they are doing all the platforms, you can complement them on using Facebook as a piece of their marketing puzzle, and talk about using that same post, but reaching people on other websites and apps with Social Mirror ads.

  Now that we have our prospecting down, let’s look at what is involved for step two where we are going to do our preparation. The worst thing you can do when going into a sales presentation is to be unprepared.

  Before you meet with the prospect, do your homework. See what kind of trackers they have from Ghostery, look up their keywords on SpyFu.com, see how many locations they have, look at different social media sites and see what kind of platforms they use. The answers for all these questions are not only going to help you put together your presentation, but it’s also going to show the prospect that you took the time to do some research before meeting with them. During that first meeting, you are also going to figure out a little bit on what they have done in the past that has worked for them, where they want to reach people, who their target audience is, and what goals they would want for a digital campaign. Are they looking for in-store sales, or website traffic, or branding and awareness? That is important information to know in order to come back with a custom proposal to pitch back to the prospect. You also want to be sure to ask the prospect how much budget they want to use and when a good time would be to get back together and go over the customized proposal. The goal of that first meeting with the prospect is to get the second meeting, step number three.

  When presenting the tailored presentation to the prospect, communication is key. Be sure to guide them through the process so they know what to expect. You want to gain the credibility and trust with the prospect because if they feel confident in you and you come across as wanting to help them and they trust you, they are more likely to move forward with the sale, bringing you to step number five, closing the sale.

  Before we get to ABC, closing the sale, there are some points that you want to make sure you are hitting as you are presenting your presentation. First, remember that you want to present yourself as an advertising expert. You want to make sure that you’re explaining the products in a way they client can understand and that you’re expressing your belief in the plan. For example, “These are the categories for Facebook that we found that are going to be best to reach the audience that you want in order to solve your challenge. We’re also going to include Retargeting because we know people are going to your website, so we want to stay in front of them”. That is going to help you build that credibility and trust. You also want to let the prospect know that you are looking at this marketing plan from their point of view and physically say to them “Here’s what I would do”. Those five words strung together carry a lot of weight. If you deliver this with confidence and put yourself in their shoes, it’s going to show. “I think these might be the best categories that might make the most sense” compared to “these are the best categories that are available to target your audience on Facebook” is a big difference and it comes across with a lot more confidence.

  You also want to incorporate trial closes into your presentation. Trial closes are questions you are asking during the presentation that move the prospect further to that “yes”. Ask them how they feel about what you have presented so far and be sure to use open ended questions, or questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or a “no”:

  • With all the information you’ve received so far, what questions do you have?
  • How do you feel about the product and what we’ve discussed so far today?
  • What do you think about the products I’ve presented?
  • If you could change something about this proposal, what would it be?

  By asking these types of questions, you can better understand the customer’s perspective and draw conclusions about their needs.

  The next step is overcoming the objections, and more than likely, you will get some during the closing process. The first thing you want to do is listen and not interrupt when the prospect starts to talk. Let them empty their cup. Active listening will make the prospect feel like you have good intentions, and it will help to continue and build that trust and credibility. You also want to summarize the prospects intentions and repeat back to them their concerns. This is another opportunity to ask more open-ended questions that could help you to reveal other concerns they might have. When you respond to them, address all the pain points that they mentioned, even if they seem trivial.

  Now comes the fun part; you’re going to go ahead and close that deal! When you do close the deal and you get that pretty John Hancock signature, talk to the client about some potential conversions to track and show them how that would work. Show them those conversions on a laptop or a desktop, but then also show them on a mobile device. Ask them what type of creative they will need. Is that something they are creating or is that something your team is creating? If they are creating it, you want to make sure they have all the correct specs to do so. If you are creating it, what kind of look or colors do they want the ad to have? What is the click through landing page? Sometimes it is the homepage of the website, but sometimes it’s not. If they are promoting a certain sale or a certain product, you want to be sure they are landing on that offer page or that service page. What is the call to action going to be? Do they want to sell tickets, do they want phone calls, people to go to the website, or click on a certain page? You also want to explain that the client most likely won’t see their ad, and be sure to get out ahead of that one. Also give them a sample report for the products that you pitched and let them know you’ll come back and go over their monthly reports with them. This last step is tying everything together and putting a pretty little bow on it. You are continuing to guide them through the process and also continuing to strengthen that credibility and trust.

  And then the final step in the sales process, is to follow up. Don’t just sell the deal and then only come around when it’s time for a renewal because you won’t get one. Be sure to stay in touch with the client. Sent them an email with a fun little factoid or stat about their industry and digital advertising. Keep on top of their creative and make sure it is being changed as needed. Make sure their website it secure and up to date. Be sure you’re holding their hand all the way from the beginning to the end.

  Now that you know your ABCs, it can be as easy and 1,2,3, so go out and do it all over again.