How to use Insites to create impactful conversations with prospects

Securing a conversation with a prospect is hard, so ensuring your first conversation with said prospect is impactful is imperative. When you approach that first conversation with a full view of their online presence, where they’re struggling, and more importantly, how you can help, you’re bound to have a better start than most folks.

But having the audit in front of you is just the first step. The second is understanding how to use it and when in these all-important first-contact calls.

Understand your prospect’s needs

Whether you’ve pulled a report for cold outreach or for a hot lead, it’s important that you understand your client’s pain points before you speak to them. Using an Insites audit, you’ll have a full breakdown of what is really going on with your prospect’s site presence, giving you a heads up as to what could be causing their slow site, lack of leads, or even why they’re losing out to competitors (hello competitor comparison tool!)

So as a quick but essential prep for your first call with your client, take 60 seconds to run your report and 5 minutes to scan over the report and quickly identify their main challenges and think of some easy goals you can target together.

Demonstrate your expertise with manual checks

If you’re an agency or a consultant, you’ll likely have expertise that you want to demonstrate in your reports. With manual checks, you can add in any checks that could be relevant to your client and your service solutions.

Including these in your first-contact audits will give you plenty to discuss with your prospect and afford you the space to get into the nitty gritty of not just what you can offer your prospects, but what they’ll be able to achieve when they work with you.

How to craft a narrative with your audit findings

A good conversation with a prospect is rooted in a well-crafted narrative. Ahead of speaking to your clients, create a narrative that guides them around the problems your audit has highlighted and the service solutions you’re offering. Your narrative should flow like this

1. Give your prospect space to share their challenges Before going in with the hard sell, let your client talk through their paint points and challenges. You’ll already have the answers in front of you because you’ve already done your homework thanks to Insites – but giving your prospect space to speak assures them that you’re invested in their project.
   
   
2. Respond using findings from your audit and jargon-free language Not every prospect is going to understand social media algorithms. And very few are going to understand the inner workings of SEO or core web vitals. That’s why they’re looking to hire you! So guide them through each of their pain points via your audit findings, and using jargon-free language from your audit, talk through key findings and how they’re impacting their online presence (and creating said pain points.)
   
   
3. Emphasise your manual checks Leaving manual checks to last is your way of highlighting those all-important differentiators between you and any other agency they may be speaking to. Diving into why they need to improve things like site design, brand consistency, and so on, is easier to back up when you it’s compacted with wider result findings.
   
   
4. Prove your points with a competitor analysis Nothing motivates clients more than knowing that their competitors are doing something better than them – and it’s helping them grow, to boot. By showing them a like-for-like score, even those nervous about digital service solutions will have reason to continue the conversation.
   
   
5. Conclude with an audit direct to their inbox We hear your objection – they could take your report and share it with another supplier. But hear us out, sending your audit to your prospect gives them the opportunity to independently review your audit on their online presence in a language they understand. All Insites audits are jargon-free and, if you’ve added them, will include your manual checks so that your clients have a comprehensive and accurate view of their online presence. For the prospects that like to go away and mull over a decision, this could be the key sales collateral that could swing the contract your way. And should you find yourself in the worst-case scenario, they take that audit and share it with another supplier, have no doubt they’ll come back to you anyway. Leaving your prospect with a full report shows you’re confident in your services and that if another supplier does a bad job, you’ll be there to help (without having to negotiate on project cost.)
   

Addressing your prospect’s concerns (and how to win their confidence)

Despite your best-rehearsed narrative or ability to address your prospect’s concerns, you may find yourself battling additional concerns. One surefire way to address those is to offer a post-project audit.

By offering to send them an updated audit when you’ve finished working on their first project with you! This not only assures them that you know what you’re doing, but you’ll be able to prove that you’ve added impact. And the best part? It’ll even help you upsell later down the line.

Include your audit in your proposal

Post-conversation, it’s time to send your proposal. But don’t assume that because you’ve already sent your audit, you don’t need to bring it up again. Outline in your proposal the exact scores your services will increase and, if you can, an estimate of how much.

This will continue to build confidence between you and your prospect as you’re committing to their project’s success – and which client do you know wouldn’t love that?

Demonstrate your long-term value

One thing to keep in the back of your mind throughout the initial sales phases is long-term value. Proving you’re not only improving but maintaining, your client’s online presence is the ticket to sought-after retainer. Whether it’s site maintenance or design assistance, using audits regularly will allow you to update your client with the impact your work is having on their online presence, but also allow you to upsell in the future.

For example, if you’re a marketing agency, you may only serve this prospect with social media assistance in the first project. However, you offer much more than that – and with a regularly updated audit, you can show clients that while their social stats are improving, they may have not noticed that their SEO ranking continues to tank. Hello, upsell!

Creating impactful conversations starts with audits

Audits can be an impactful tool in the early stages of client acquisition. By following our tips, not only can you create impactful conversations with your prospect’s early in your pipeline, but you’ll also find opportunities to upsell or win ongoing retainers as your relationship with your prospect grows.

Happy auditing!

👋 The Insites Team