We are frequently asked by clients how to leverage Digital Body Language for B2B tele-prospecting.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume everyone is familiar with the term and the tools within marketing automation platforms that present Digital Body Language.
The great thing about these tools is that they allow you to gain insight into the prospect’s business pains and interests so you can customize your approach to each individual in a relevant and timely manner. Gone are the days of using a generic one-size-fits-all calling script or guide.
It must be said that these tools only provide insight for “known visitors” to your website, meaning people who have either clicked through on an email or filled out a form. Even though this represents a much smaller portion of your prospects database, these are individuals whose online behavior is telling us that they are in buying mode.
Therefore a tailored outbound calling approach should resonate and when properly executed should get the reaction, “Gee, you’re calling me at the right time!” instead of a rude rebuff.
So how do you go about crafting the perfect pitch? Let’s first start off with some basic do’s and don’ts:
Do:
Use Profiler to understand: How engaged is the prospect with my company?
Review: How frequently has the prospect been to the website? Over what period? How long were the last few visits? How many page views?
What is the prospect interested in?
Review: What search queries have they used? What web pages have they viewed? What events have they attended? What assets (whitepapers, case studies, etc.) have they downloaded? What comms have gone out?
Review: What content have they engaged with? Are they in a nurture program? If so which one, what are the messages/themes.
Leverage more recent activity (< 1 month old) when crafting the approach.
Refer to ‘External Activity’ such as attending a webinar, tradeshow, Tweets, LinkedIn updates, etc.
Turn on ‘Real Time Alerts’ for a limited number of high potential prospects to help you make the initial call attempt within 24 hours of the prospect visiting the website.
Do not:
Refer to explicit aspects of the prospect’s behavior, for example:
- “I see you’ve typed the search query…”
- “I see you’ve been visiting certain web pages…”
- “I see in the last 10 days you have been back to our website 3 times.”
- “I see that you have opened my email 10 times.”
- “I see you visited our website at 15.36 today.”
Refer to any nurture programs (unless prompted by the prospect).
Refer to the prospect’s lead score.
Keep in mind that Digital Body Language should be used as a means to understand a buyer’s business pain, need, and interest. The ensuing conversation should focus on helping the buyer better understand your offering and how it can help solve their business problem.
Scenario 1
The prospect has taken explicit action that helps you understand their area of interest and/or business pain. For example they may have downloaded product-specific asset(s), attended product-specific event(s), filled out specific form(s).
Possible approach: “Hello Bob, I’m following up with you about your interest in [specify the name of the product or solution]. Please let me know if there are any questions you have, or if you would like to speak more about how we have worked with clients like XXX [ideally chose a company in the same industry] to solve comparable challenges [if known, insert business pain area].”
Scenario 2
The prospect has not taken any explicit action other than to click through on an email to the corporate website. In this scenario rather than focusing on the email click-through, it’s the page views that provide more insight and clues as to their area of interest and/or business pain. Use DBL to help you craft a customized approach without specifically referring to the actual interaction in detail.
Possible approach: “Hello Sue, I am reaching out to companies in the [insert industry sector] that are looking to address challenges around [insert business pain that solutions solves]. Please let me know if you would like to learn more about how we work with clients like XXX [ideally choose a company in the same industry] to solve comparable challenges [if known, insert business pain area].”
As mentioned in the beginning, these tools are only available for known visitors. This may represent only 2-8% of your website traffic in any given month. So how do you engage with the 92-98% that are unknown BUT seem to be exhibiting the right behavior? For these unknown prospects that are likely at an earlier stage in their buying cycle, we recommend using proactive chat to qualify their interest and generate incremental pipeline.
