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Improving Customer Communications with Video Calls

Header image for SharpSpring information on PROSAR website.

Although nothing beats meeting with people to fully communicate, understand each other, and form well-rounded impressions. Communicating via email and text is efficient and can be very effective once a relationship is established. Phone calls are much better at discussing complex issues and getting to know a person, while video calls provide the benefit of voice, facial expression, as well as shared screens and group presentations.

Communication has always been the key to marketing and sales. Now, and for the foreseeable future, video calls have never been more important. Here are some tips for making effective and professional use of video calls.

 

Making Good Video Calls

Since we’re all spending more time in virtual meetings, consider these tips for good video calls:

  • Look Professional: If it’s a business call, show respect for the other participants, your company and yourself — dress accordingly for your business and role. Video calls from home can be a little more relaxed, but you still want to be seen as competent and professional so hygiene, grooming and pants are strongly recommended.
  • Be Prepared: Keeping people’s attention can be more difficult online so don’t create downtime or lags searching for information or trying to remember what you wanted to say. Have all resources close at hand and ready, make notes beforehand and include your goals for the meeting to keep you on track content-wise and strategically.
  • Set the Scene: A cluttered or discordant background make it difficult to focus on you; it may also make it difficult to take you seriously. A plain background is your best backdrop. Good lighting is critical, but from the front not back. Avoid lights and windows behind you.
  • Watch the Time: The informal nature of a video call versus an in-person meeting can foster long, boring affairs. Be mindful of the time and what is being accomplished. Keep to the agenda schedule for your input and move others along if you are the chair.
  • Watch your Mouth: Video calls are often recorded, so think twice before you speak.
  • Take Notes: Just as you would in a regular meeting, take notes to remember key points and action items that involve you. Ensure your notes are in sync with the meeting minutes.

Making Good Video Calls with SharpSpring

SharpSpring has complemented its Sales Optimizer with in-application video calling. It makes it easy to connect with others on their laptop or desktop. Recipients don’t need to use SharpSpring and there is no software to download. Their browser will ask permission to use their laptop’s mic and speaker and that’s it… you’re face-to-face creating relationships and opportunities.

Getting connected for online meetings and meaningful conversations is simple. Reach out to leads in your SharpSpring CRM with the click of a button, invite anyone via email, even invite people to video calls already in progress. Easily contact team members by clicking Video Call in the top toolbar.

Animated gif showing how easy it is to create a video call from SharpSpring.

 

SharpSpring Video Call Features

A full complement of video call features will help you succeed online:

Table of SharpSpring video call features.

 

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SharpSpring Makes it Easier to Close Sales with its New Meetings App

Header image for SharpSpring information on PROSAR website.

Booking meetings is the name of the game in sales. To help you excel at booking appointments and converting prospects to clients, SharpSpring has gone a few steps further than apps that automate the appointment booking process. It has created a fully automated process of triggered emails, tasks, notifications, follow-up and integrated it with their comprehensive marketing automation solution.

 

Creating and Sharing Meetings with SharpSpring Meetings

Invite clients and prospects to book a meeting with you in a professional, seamless and automated fashion. Use a text link (perhaps in your email signature with screenshot of SharpSpring Meeting app - adding book appointment button to email“Book a consultation now!”) or a button — either are easily created within the app. You can place the text link/button in an email, on your website or a landing page, wherever you want people to connect online and automatically book a meeting with you.

In addition, you can share meetings that you have created. Each share meeting link is unique to a specific meeting. Just like the initial meeting booking links, meetings can be shared via emails, websites and landing pages.

There is no limit to the number of users. A sales team of 2, 4 or 42 can have profiles for all staff, each with their own settings and personalized links to book meetings.

 

Customize Meeting App Settings

screenshot of SharpSpring Meeting app - Booking a Meeting

Set in advance the dates and times you are available, when and how you are notified of booked meetings, and which calendars are synced with your booked meetings. These settings can be modified at any time.

 

Sales managers can be notified and view all activity, monitoring follow-up, results and prospect nurturing.

You can even customize which domains the meetings are set to, as well as the color for meeting calendars.

And, big bonus, the SharpSpring Meetings app is completely free with the SharpSpring Marketing Automation subscription. To learn more about SharpSpring and their Meetings app, contact PROSAR today.

Learn more about marketing automation and its effect on email best practices in our article The New Email Paradigm: Do More with Less

 

PROSAR Inbound Inc. is a SharpSpring Partner.

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5 Considerations for Your Unique Selling Proposition

Unique Selling proposition hand-written for PROSAR blog

What are the unique characteristics that make your organization valuable to potential customers? If you had the classic 15-second elevator ride with a key prospect, what would you say to them?

Most likely you would struggle with a muddled sense of what your organization does but fail to present a cohesive and compelling introduction. How convenient it would have been if you were ready with a well-crafted Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A good USP accomplishes several objectives:

  • Differentiates your organization
  • Identifies the benefit(s) of dealing with your organization
  • Supports your brand
  • Engages the listener and creates interest

The concept of a Unique Selling Proposition goes back to the 1940s and has been used ever since to help marketers and salespeople focus on key statements that could influence potential buyers. Whether the buyer is a consumer or a business, and whether they’re searching for a service, a product or even an association to join, a USP can be instrumental in influencing their decision. Regardless of what you’re selling, the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively will help you be more successful.

A well-crafted Unique Selling Proposition is very powerful as it guides your marketing content and tone. It typically finds its way into your advertising copy. And moving beyond words, consider how you could incorporate your USP in processes and procedures, influencing the organization’s culture.

Here are five key points to consider when crafting your Unique Selling Proposition.

  1. Be Specific: You don’t have time for a backstory; immediately hone in on the benefits you offer that distinguishes your organization. Remember that the point is not simply to enumerate why your organization is good, but why it is UNIQUE. Specify what makes you ideal in comparison to others.
  2. Be Succinct: Clearly and quickly state your case. Your audience doesn’t need a description of how you do what you do (unless that is what makes you unique), however they do need sufficient context to determine any relevance for them. Include the context they need within your simple and short statement.
  3. Be Compelling: It’s essential that you grab them right away. What’s in it for them? If they don’t care, they won’t listen, not even for 15 seconds. Consider not only how your service/product is relevant, but how it will make their life better. Present it in a compelling manner to give your statement more impact and grab their attention.
  4. Be Consistent: Support your brand and organizational raison d’être. Not only does this make sense to positively position your organization, but if there is a disconnect between your USP and your established branding, or way of doing business, it can cause confusion and mistrust.
  5. Be Honest: You want your statement to have impact and even be a little dramatic, but this isn’t the time for hyperbole. If your USP is not genuine it will sound like a sales schpeel, and that won’t interest anyone. If prospects don’t feel they can trust you, they won’t be interested in hearing any further from you. (And don’t forget that if you are successful, you have to deliver on what you’ve promised.)

Your organization may require several USPs to effectively address distinct audiences for different services/products, or for different market segments. You won’t be able to be specific, succinct and compelling if you’re trying to talk to many different audiences at the same time. It would be more strategic, and successful, to customize your USP for each targeted market segment.

This can be quite a process and it may take some time to hone your USPs until you feel they properly represent your organization. After you have internal consensus, I suggest vetting your draft USPs with clients and suppliers. Do the hard work and you’ll be ready to start riding the elevators with anticipation of that perfect prospect to walk in. Admittedly, that may never happen. But you will be involved in sales calls and networking when you’ll definitely have the opportunity to succinctly and compellingly state your organization’s value. And you’ll shine — you know what they say, “Luck favours the well-prepared.”

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3 Considerations to Improve Marketing and Sales

Align your marketing strategy and sales development for greater success.

Sales is an integral aspect of any organization: manufacturers, service providers, member-driven associations, small business, bureaucratic enterprises… All organizations rely on a steady source of revenue to survive and grow. It is understood that marketing is an important aspect of creating awareness, positioning a brand and essentially creating a positive environment for sales to occur. Unfortunately, how marketing strategy and sales development successfully work together is often not fully considered.

The relationship between marketing and sales has long been a troubled one. Whereas they should be working together in synergy with the common goal of securing relationships to strengthen the organization, they are often actively at odds with each other, oblivious to each other, or embroiled in a cold war of secrecy and subterfuge.

The digitization of the business world and its business development processes has helped bring these two disciplines closer, and many software tools approach the two coherently. However, many organizations still seem to cling to the old ideology that promotes two separate silos with little connection.

To reap the rewards of harmonized marketing and sales efforts, keep the following three aspects in mind.

 

Marketing and Sales are Distinct Functions

Although I am stressing the importance of integrating them, it’s important to appreciate that marketing and sales have different functions. One focuses on creating awareness, positioning a brand and developing interest. The other is tasked with capitalizing on that interest and closing the deal. Some feel that marketing spends money and sales makes money. Admittedly, it takes resources to mount a successful marketing campaign, but marketing should be a strategic investment. (And, it is getting easier to monitor and track your ROI.)

The difference in approach may often be subtle, but worth respecting. Trying to sell to new leads will probably annoy and scare them away; whereas a well nurtured lead may always be a prospect unless you provide a timely and appropriate buying opportunity. Understanding the difference between the two disciplines guides the role each should play and how they can successfully work together to improve your business development efforts.

 

Marketing and Sales Should be Aligned

Although marketing and sales are distinct, they should not be isolated from each other. The old corporate structure had separate departments, often with little communication between the two. Internally it was more of a competition as to which department was most valuable to the organization. Fiefdoms and bureaucracy may have been affordable then, but with leaner teams and higher expectations in today’s fast-paced and cost-efficient business world, it is essential to have an aligned and harmonious process that attracts leads and nurtures them to be satisfied customers.

To align your marketing strategy and sales efforts, it makes sense to work backwards. Determining your sales goals and forecasted breakdown is a good way to start. From their you can better identify your target audiences and flesh out buyer personas. Understanding who you will be selling to provides a good foundation for determining your marketing strategy. Where and how will you engage your audiences, what are they interested in, how will you effectively communicate your advantages and benefits, what aspects of your brand will resonate with them… Key marketing decisions that will guide your content and creative start with considering the final sale.

Structuring how leads transition from marketing to sales, with a communication/feedback loop, will allow a seamless journey for your prospects and returning customers. There are many good software tools that assist you in structuring, implementing and monitoring the process. Many (e.g. SharpSpring) help you to automate the process and identify opportunities — making the process itself an active part of the solution.

 

Integrate Marketing strategy and Sales Plan

You’re no doubt aware that a smart strategy with SMART goals is a smart way to proceed — plan your work, then work your plan. Most companies have a sales plan, it may simply be targets, but they at least have a clear objective to aim for. Many SMEs have a budget for marketing, but fail to have a detailed marketing plan. And I’d wager that an exceptionally small minority actually have an integrated sales and marketing plan. So, how is an organization expected to develop sales and grow with little or no structured guidance?

Sustained growth is achieved and maintained with goals, processes and tactics in place. Defining the strategy and ongoing tactics to reach your goals, and then putting the processes in place is what separates successful companies. Going the extra step to create a joint marketing and sales process will distinguish you even further.

The simple solution to growth is marketing strategy and sales working in harmony with a coherent strategy. The successful implementation is not so simple — it requires a good deal of knowledge and a lot of work, on a consistent and ongoing basis.