I am sure many of you will recognize this all-too-common scenario...
I am working with an old friend who owns a small technology
company. Like a lot of small business owners, he has a laundry list of things
he'd like to get done, but budget dollars are scarce. The two most vital
projects - a website overhaul and new product brochures - will take more
dollars than he has available.
Option A - Spend a
little here, a little there.
One way to address this is to try to fit both into the
budget by doing it himself or hiring lower quality freelancers. While that's an
option, I'd argue it's probably what got him to where he is in the first place.
Replacing his current website with one that doesn't improve the user experience
or brochures that are poorly written or designed, will just be throwing good
money after bad.
Nor will trying to do it himself result in a better quality
product. He heads a team of technologists not marketers, and there are
significant opportunity costs involved.
Option 2 - Prioritize
In truth, he has enough funds to do either the website or
the brochures well. We're not talking "Cadillac" versions of either,
but he doesn't need that. He needs something that allows his team to put their
best foot forward. Ultimately, he needs to prioritize and pick one over the
other.
The big question is, where does he start? I have the luxury
of being somewhat of an unbiased source. That is, I don't necessarily make my
living from website redesigns nor sales collateral creation. I supply copy for
both as well as a number of other types of materials such as blog posts and
white papers. Where he ultimately chooses to start makes no difference to me.
That said, while I have no horse in this race, after spending three decades in
sales and marketing, you can be sure I have an opinion.
Let the Sales Funnel
Decide
My friend needs to look at his sales funnel and determine
where his biggest challenges lie. Let's take a closer look.
One of my clients divides the customer's journey into three
phases - awareness, buying, and implementation and usage. Naturally, you are
going to have more opportunities - and I'm using that term somewhat loosely -
at the top of the funnel in the awareness phase. At this stage, your prospects
are starting to frame their challenges and research potential solutions. The
key is to capture their attention and help them see your solution as at least
one potential option so they can progress to the buying stage.
During the buying stage, the prospect is digging deeper into
their potential options. At first they may have general questions - the kind
that can be answered via sales collateral. Later in this stage, their questions
will go deeper and need to be supported by more specific resources such as
white papers, case studies, ROI tools and subject matter experts.
For now, I'm going to skip the implementation stage. If my
friend's team can close the business, implementing and creating long-term
relationships is not an issue.
To make a wise choice, he needs to look at his funnel and
determine where his biggest challenges lie. Is he having a problem attracting
new opportunities? If so, his website is the most important focal point,
especially since he sells B2B products across a wide geography. His website is
the first introduction most people have to what his business can do.
On the other hand, if finding new opportunities isn't an
issue, but keeping them engaged is, he will want to focus on the collateral
needed to keep the opportunity flowing through the funnel. He believes product
brochures are necessary, but other organizations may choose to start with
supporting collateral like case studies if they are more instrumental in
keeping prospects engaged.
If the answer is "all of the above" as I suspect
it might be, he needs to start at the top of the funnel. After all, he can't
close opportunities that he doesn't have to begin with.
Want to ask a direct question? Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
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