When we can come out of our homes and back to ‘normalcy’, people will still be tepid to attend public gatherings and events for some time. People will be slow to meet face to face at industry events, conferences, and seminars even after receiving the green light, diminishing opportunities for advertising, in-person sales, finding new leads, and audience engagement.

During the interim people are now getting acclimated to working remotely, meeting on Zoom, and connecting online if your network or audience wasn’t already. If your business model is based on being in front of people, it will be important how you solve your customers’ problems online and test the waters with alternative methods for the time being. If you have a brick and mortar store you can still engage prospects/customers now while we’re in lock-down mode, staying on top of mind. If you tend to generate most of your sales or leads in person what you will need to determine now is how to spark an interest attracting your target audience to your site, build a relationship with the audience through your website/digital marketing channel and ultimately closing the deal which this article dives into. 

Long-term, this is the beginning of many businesses and industries evolving how they generate leads, engage their audience or sell products and services. The reality is companies should be doubling down in digital advertising for the long haul not cutting dollars or holding off because the competition could get significantly ahead. This becomes an issue because a digital marketing strategy takes time and doesn’t happen overnight. 

Example: let’s say you want to take up Search Engine Optimization (good choice since 93% all online experiences start with a search engine). SEO Mechanic states that SEO takes 4-6 months to see real results. So if you want to show up high in Google for the organic search results you need to plan ahead.

The best way to earn business online is the reason why the best sales people earn business face to face – they understand how to build a relationship. Why is building a relationship important? Because they are founded on trust. I think we all know why trust is important – because if someone trusts that you have their best interest at heart they will have a significantly higher propensity to take an action based on what you’re telling them. 

Building that trust doesn’t happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen when you meet someone and say ‘hi want to buy something from me’? Well that’s in fact what many websites and companies do by constantly focusing on product/service promotion, not on solving the audiences’ problems. Today the avg. customer has 6-8 touch points. You need to prove you are a thought leader, and have many touch points that builds the story “you’re the best at what you do.” 

So how do you build trust online, show you’re a thought leader, speak to the audience and have many touch points? You need to disseminate the right message/content to the right people at the right time.

If you look at many company websites, they do a good job of explaining why someone should work with their organization, but not answering users’ questions before they are even thinking about buying something (or your brand for that matter).  74% of deals are provided to the company that was the first to provide insight. The user journey below shows how you can spark that curiosity, build that trust through thought leadership (solve there problems/ answer their questions), then focus on your solutions and lastly prove why it would solve their problem. 

Now that you have the underlying principles of the right messaging/content, where do you find your audience and what do all those touch points look like? The digital sales funnel below breaks down how you can find your audience (increase traffic) and how you can disseminate that messaging with many digital marketing touch points through the user’s journey. If done correctly the audience will feel as if you’re talking directly to them walking them through the user journey at each touch point further establishing that trust.

As Winston Churchill said ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ We as a people are resilient and there will be winners and losers just like in the 2008 crash where companies like Uber, Groupon & Square thrived. There will always be a place for in-person sales or lead generation. However a digital strategy based on trust can significantly bolster whatever ‘offline’ touch points you have, and increase your sales/lead funnel significantly especially at a time where the trend will continue to be online.