Mar 18, 2021 | Marketing Management
Tridiv Das
During a time when we are engrossed in accomplishing an urgent work, a call from a sales rep who wouldn’t take no for an answer is the last thing we would ever wish for. Sounds familiar? Well, we all have had interactions with salespeople that didn’t last as a good memory and instead of making us eager to buy, the interaction left us annoyed. Most of the time it is either them trying to forcefully sell something that we don’t need or not listening to our real need. Though their intentions might have been absolutely on point, we usually end up leave the conversation on a negative note.
Reaching out to the existing or potential customers in today’s time isn’t about door-to-door selling or making 50 calls in a day. With access to information in every step of their lives, consumers today are more empowered, informed, knowledgeable, and in control than ever before. The idea that a salesperson drives people through the sales funnel is old school and irrelevant now. The bottom line is that the world of sales and its process are continuously evolving, and traditional sales methods are irrelevant during uncertainties.
A fine line between persistency & becoming annoying
Traditional styles of selling can be manipulative, pressurising, aggressive, and annoying. It is more about overcoming obstacles, tackling roadblocks, and making customers to get into a sale, regardless of their necessities. Persistency is important is sales, but there exists a very fine line between being persistent and becoming annoying. During uncertain times, especially, when individuals are in a confused state of mind and settle for essentials and not their wants, traditional sales methods can become irrelevant.
Stop chasing, be a guide instead
Chasing and harassing customers is only going go away, instead it’s important to let them come to you. It’s crucial to earn the trust of prospects which can be achieved by giving them what they want. We need to become their guide and an advisor in their journey. Rather than pushing for immediate close on a sale, we need to build trusting relationship by helping them make the right purchasing and gain new perspectives. Webcasts and online events are very effective tools to reach out to the prospects and existing customers.
Keeping in mind the current circumstances, it’s very important to connect with potential and existing customers, especially when we cannot meet them in person. Hence, webcasts and online events can turn out to be an essential communication tool to connect and interact with the audience. It helps in engaging a broader audience faster; educating customers on subjects that need their attention to help them gain new perspective, shortening the sales cycle, strengthening relationships, reducing costs, and saving time.
Best practices for conducting a successful webcast / online event
Though webcasts and online events are effective tools to reach out to customers, there are a few practices that must be followed to ensure its success.
Defining the strategy and objective:
It’s crucial to have a strategy in place and pre-define realistic goals in order to not lose track or deviate during the process.
To ensure effectiveness of the webcast, speakers should script an engaging content broken into smaller chunks to increase retention. The speaker could also use simple interactive techniques or conduct a poll to check on the audiences’ response to the context or topics. It’s recommended to use stories, examples, illustrations and other engaging forms to make the entire webcast content easier to understand and remember.
Spreading the word to the right target audience at the right place and time will not just help in getting more registrations but also can do wonders for your business.
Do record the entire event and post the event share it with the participants who attended and who couldn’t attend. It’s essential to follow up with all of them for future events.
Analysing the success of the event through feedbacks, analytic tools, surveys, and metrics is very important. It will help you understand the drawbacks and make it easier to rectify them, evaluate the expectations, and meet the demands of the audience.
Webcasts and online events are excellent ways to reach out your audience, prospects, existing customers, and also employees. We at Creative Factor will be able to assist you with content strategy, content creation, and designing the experience and well as creative assets for webcasts and online event. Do reach out to us to make your next webcast or online event a great success.