As a Senior Consultant with The Center for Sales Strategy, I’ve reviewed a lot of proposals from salespeople over the years.
As I analyze the ideas sellers plan to present to clients, I often push them to make their proposals stronger by asking, “Where’s the plan to achieve the desired business results? How can you make it easier to buy?”
These prompts often create the awareness that we need to do a little more fishing. So, grab a fishing pole and have a seat on the dock. Today we are taking a virtual fishing trip!
Questions to Ask When Developing Integrated Marketing Solutions
To help you catch your prospect, let’s visit five fishing-related questions you can use to reel in results!
1. Are you fishing for trouble?
We all love to sell those shiny new lures—the new technology-driven products, but remember the whole process starts with a quality client needs analysis.
- Ask the tough questions.
- Find their pain.
- Fish for trouble.
Once you understand the true need—and not some surface-level need any high school marketing student could have guessed before the call—you can continue this fishing expedition.
2. What’s the hook?
You’ve brainstormed, and you have a list of ideas. Now it’s time to turn the idea into something the advertiser and end consumer can get excited about. This hook, or campaign theme, is the creative concept upon which the entire campaign is built.
3. Where’s the bait?
Give the consumer a reason to care about your message. Consider their target – is there one or more than one that you need to drive to action? Make sure your message resonates with each and use a call to action to entice them to take the next step.
4. How will you reel them in?
This is where all of your capabilities come into play - your digital and traditional. After confirming the account’s needs, incorporating the hook, and considering the action you want the consumer to take, it’s time to look at your digital and traditional tools and decide which are best to move the consumer through each stage of the consumer journey.
As you determine which capabilities you will pull into your integrated solution, consider the desired business results your account wants to achieve. While most accounts will want to focus on conversions or sales, remember to focus on how you will impact the entire consumer journey – from attracting strangers to engaging visitors to converting them into customers.
5. Are you ready for the fish fry?
If you have successfully reeled in your catch, you want to make sure you prepare them for the excitement that comes next. Communicate early and often the next steps in the process. Make sure you and your prospect are on the same page when it comes to how you will measure results and discuss them once your campaign begins.
Conclusion
The seller who offers a truly integrated solution that gets to the heart of the desired business results, makes it clear why each capability was selected and its role in activating the consumer will catch and reel in their prospect more often than those who don’t. Use these questions to help reel in results.
*Editor's Note: This blog was originally written in 2013 and has since been updated.
