3 Reasons to Promote Flexible Financing Options on Your Website

It’s time to put content about financing options on your website. According to Miller Heiman Group, 70% of the buyers’ journey is complete before a prospect talks to a salesperson or engages in potential sellers. This means that by the time your salesperson talks to the prospect, the prospect will have already identified, to the best of their ability, what to buy, when to buy it, at what cost and from which reseller.

There are several steps your prospects are following in the buyer’s journey before you speak to them. In this article, I focus on the Research Stage.

What Is the Research Stage?

The Research Stage is the part of the buyer’s journey where your prospect is deciding internally on who they want to buy from. The primary point of research is attributed to your website. The prospect is going to spend an ample amount of time looking at your:

• Technology stack
• People
• Partners
• Certifications

Your prospects will seek assurance that you can help them with their technology and be a valued partner to them. They want to see your story–and they don’t want to hear it first in a pitch from a salesperson.

We live in the world of information at our fingertips. We have never been more empowered to make decisions quicker as individuals as we are now. The shift in information consumption can either help you or hurt you, which leads me to my next point: Financing options, or flexible payment options, must be promoted on your website.

Why Promote Financing Options on Your Website?

Along with the shift in information consumption is the product and service consumption shift: The way your prospects are buying often aligns with some sort of monthly payment model. When your company has made effort to match this desired method of consumption, why not flaunt it a little? Here are three reasons to be promoting a flexible way to pay on your website.

1. In a recent survey from our team, we found that six out of 10 prospects decided that resellers are more valuable if they provide multiple options for them to pay for their technology acquisition.
2. In this same survey, nearly seven out of 10 prospects simply expected an alternative payment option. Payment options are not a part of everything we pay for in our personal lives. Its being expected in B2B.
3. Your competitors are offering it. Don’t get stuck scrambling because a competitor introduced financing and you didn’t. The more you scramble, the more comprehensive your competitor looks to a prospect.

Be Active in Your Customer’s Research Stage

Let’s take this a bit further: With 70% of the buyer’s journey completed by the time your salespeople speak to a prospect, its very challenging for your salespeople to tell the whole story when only 30% of the process is left. By this time, the customer wants a SOW and a price. They don’t want to answer a ton of questions or hear a two-hour pitch from someone trying to “close” the sale.

It’s never been more important to be a part of the prospect’s researching stage, and it’s never been more important to dedicate sections on your website about financing. Here are some best practices for website promotion:

• Create content around why financing is helping prospects acquire more and better technology.
• Show the researchers that you understand not only the technology aspect of your prospects’ needs, but also the business side.
• Include testimonials of EUs that have benefited from your financing programs.
• Create videos to connect emotionally on how you’ve helped customers save their cash and capital through your alternative payment options.

Let’s not forget the potential gains from SEO. Figure out what keywords your EUs / prospects are searching. Most often, you’ll find them to relate to financing programs and benefits. This can help you create more leads and opportunities for your sales and marketing people to suspect.

Use financing blogs and articles to help pull the sale from a price battle to a business discussion. Your salespeople can use these blogs and articles to fill the gaps of communication and revert them back to your website and managed your prospects digital journey.

Lead the sales process. Produce more valuable content than your competition. Create options that your prospects will research themselves. Create points of interest for a business conversation for your reps instead of forcing them to find or create them.

At the end of the day, your prospects are expecting payment options in every aspect of their lives. Put your financing programs front and center on your website and part of your prospects’ buying journeys.

Do you need help getting valuable financing content on your website? Reach out to us today at financialsolutions@ingrammicro.com, and let’s do this!

 This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.