Wouldn’t it be great if every single customer you approached was able, willing, and excited to buy from you? It can happen—really. If you know how to get in front of the ideal customer.
Inbound marketing will get you tons of leads. But the thing is, not all of them will convert. Not all of them will be sales ready. So you need to be able to cut through the noise, remove the unqualified leads from your pipeline, and focus on the ideal buyers who will most likely result in closed sales.
Let’s get started.
First, Define Your Ideal Customer
There is absolutely no way you’re going to be able to get in front of your ideal customer if you don’t know who that is. You’ll waste time chasing after the wrong leads, putting effort and resources into trying to close deals that will never close.
Everything starts with defining your ideal buyer. Get this wrong, and the rest of our advice will be for not. You need to know, in detail, who is most likely to buy from you—what are their characteristics, their psychographics, and their demographics? How old are they? What are their job titles? How large are their companies? What’s their budget? What are their needs, wants, and desires? What are their pain points and challenges?
Don’t kid yourself and think that everyone will want what you’re selling. The fact is there is going to be a specific type of buyer that will be more likely to be interested in, or need, your products or services.
Remember, you can absolutely have several ideal buyers. Make sure to flesh out each one. Create buyer persona profiles of each one, instead of just one big combination of them all.
Follow the Profile You’ve Created
Now, when you get leads, do a little bit of research about them. Look up their companies’ websites. Look at their social media profiles. Find them in the news. With a little bit of effort, you’ll get to learn a lot about your leads before you even try to get in contact with them. With all of the information you’ve gathered about them, compare the leads to your buyer persona profiles. Do they fit the bill? If so, keep them in the pipeline. Are they way off the mark? Then don’t waste your time. Not sure? Then keep them in the pipeline and when you do get in contact, make sure to ask sales qualification questions to make your final decision.
Find out If They’re in Active Buying Mode
Identifying ideal customers when checking out your leads is great. But there’s another part of the puzzle that you need to consider before you start devoting time trying to close them: are they active in the buying process right now?
Someone might really, really want what you’re selling. They could be the perfect customer, matching all of your criteria. But, they could also not be ready to buy right now. They might still be at the top or the middle of the sales funnel. And there’s no point in spending time trying to sell to someone who isn’t ready to buy just yet. If anything, contacting a lead that isn’t ready to buy yet can actually damage your chances of closing the deal.
So configure your website to make sure you’re being notified when leads complete a contact form, check out your pricing page, or perform some other action that indicates they’re ready to buy—and soon.
There you have it. Define your ideal buyers correctly and make sure they’re active in the buying process—and you’ll be able to get in front of the ideal customer, each and every time.
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