How Sales Content Helps When Deals Go Dormant

Dormant deals are never any fun. Whether a deal has dropped off due to lack of interest or need, budget issues, or the need isn’t realized by key decision makers, it’s never easy for sales reps to abandon something they put so much time and effort into. Some sales deals simply aren’t salvageable, but for those that just need an extra push or two to rekindle the interest and correspondence, the simple solution is the right sales content. We’ll break down certain selling situations by the challenges our own sales reps experience and suggest ways that sales content can (and has) helped reengage prospects.

1. There are multiple decision makers stalling a decision. This typically happens in large organizations that have multiple departments and stakeholders. It is first a challenge to get a hold of the right person, but once you do they likely need to get others involved. The solution to the working with an increasing number of decision makers is understanding each and what is important to them. Sales and marketing leaders should have a deep understanding of their target buyer personas, their values and challenges, and how your product can help them. If your organization doesn’t have extensive knowledge of its buyer personas and supporting content for each, it can be difficult to relate to a wide range of decision makers.
2. Your point of contact goes dark. Having enthusiastic and engaged prospective buyers is the best part of selling. When a buyer is downloading content, is actively corresponding with you, and understands how your product can help, it may feel like a done deal. But the worst part of selling is when buyers you know will benefit from your product go completely dark. They stop responding to calls and emails, and you have no insights into why. This could happen for a number of reasons, including a stall in the decision-making process, loss of budget, or the person may just be busy. While it’s difficult to gauge why this happens, sales content can help get buyers back on the right track. Sales reps must be able to see what other content the prospect has viewed, what webpages he or she has visited, and what specific needs he or she is trying to meet. Using this information, sales reps can send other relevant content to ideally rekindle this prospect’s interest. Until you receive a hard “no” from a prospect, you never know what piece of sales content will revive the deal.
3. Budget, time, or other projects are in the way. Some things are simply out of a sales rep’s control—like the prospect company’s other projects, budget, or time constraints. These are internal stalls that mean that your deal may still be on the table, just not right now. In order to stay top-of-mind and relevant, continue to share relevant content with these prospects, just not as aggressively as you might do if it was an active decision-making process. These prospects are likely further along in the sales funnel, so sharing product- and persona-specific content will show that you still value your relationship with them.

These are just a few selling scenarios where sales content can help rekindle a prospect conversation or buying process. Have you run into any other challenges where sales content helped speed up the sales cycle or reengage a prospect? Let us know in the comments!