tm supercharge sales with symantec Website security solutions 10 Tactics You Can Implement Right Now
Promote the Most Recognized Trustmark on the Internet. You don t always need a grand or expensive strategy in order to win new clients and retain your valuable customers. Sometimes all it takes is a set of tactics to make a big difference to your bottom line. Symantec has honed its Website Security Solutions with SSL marketing and sales techniques and has optimized programs based on what works. Symantec would like to share with you 10 best practices that we have tested and proven in the field. These 10 tactical activities require almost no extra resources or investment. Most importantly, they work! Each of these tactics has proven highly effective with partners and our own direct sales efforts. These tactics include ways to enhance your Websites, drive single traffic to your Website through search engine optimization (SEO), and close more deals through best practices for your sales teams. These activities will help you maximize sales opportunities, differentiate your business, and accelerate your profitability. So don t delay supercharge your sales today! Four Ways to Enhance Your Website Tactic # 1: Show the Norton TM Secured Seal. People want to see a trust mark before they transact with any kind of business online and the Norton Secured Seal is one of the world s most recognized security brands. If you don t already showcase the Norton Secured Seal, put it on your Website today. In a U.S. consumer study, 94% of respondents are likely to continue an online purchase when they view the Norton Secured Seal during the checkout process, more than other seals or no seal displayed.* It s no wonder why The Norton Secured Seal one of the world s most recognized trust seals. Another good reason to show the seal is to publicize the fact that you re using an industry-leading SSL such as the Symantec brand. Whether you re selling Symantec, GeoTrust, or Thawte, display the most recognized seal that you sell and your customers will see that you believe in these products. Seals are free with your SSL Certificate, so don t wait any longer to put yours to work for your business. Tactic #2: Always have an answer. When someone types in a search term that has no matches, make sure your site displays sale items, top-selling products, or even simple navigation to your most popular content. After all, you have their attention don t just show a blank page and lose the opportunity to interest them in your offerings. Whether they have entered a typo, an irrelevant term, or just a term for which you have not yet developed content, always keep your visitors on your Website engaged with information on your products and services. *Study conducted March 2011
Tactic #3: Showcase the green bar. When Symantec started marketing Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates in 2007, we researched many different ways to instantly communicate that a site is protected by EV. The result? The green address bar commonly seen today on sites throughout the world proven to significantly increase click-through rates. In fact, Symantec helped lead the development of Extended Validation, and as of January 2012, has issued more EV SSL Certificates than any other Certificate Authority.* So display the green EV bar and promote use among your customers, showing the world your higher sense of security. And remember to display the green bar image directly in any content about EV SSL, or wherever you are linking to EV information. Tactic #4: Get a testimonial with metrics. Prospects want to know exactly how your business is going to help them and by how much. At Symantec, we rely on testimonials and case studies to drive sales on our own web pages. We encourage our partners to utilize their own customer testimonials to market your business and to present your value to potential customers. Testimonials are powerful, and those with metrics are even more meaningful. Three Tactics for Search Engine Optimization Tactic #5: Use keywords, not tech talk. Potential customers searching for products and technologies use Google and other search engines to find what they want using their own language. Make sure you know and use the language and keywords your customers use when searching for your products and services. If you just use your product-specific terms or esoteric technology talk, you will not benefit from all those Google searches, and will probably lose the interest of customers or prospects who visit your site. Find out which keywords and phrases are most popular, and build the content on your site around those keywords. For example, use SSL or SSL Certificates, not secure sockets layer when promoting Symantec SSL products. Make some simple changes in the words you use for titles, headlines, and text. These changes will make your web pages more relevant to your audience and to the search engines, so you will rank higher and get more free traffic. Tactic #6: Improve your crawlability. Search engines determine where your Website ranks for particular keywords based on the content they have crawled and indexed on your Website. To improve your rankings and thus increase traffic you want the search engines to crawl more pages on your site, more frequently. Here are three simple steps you can take to make it easier for search engines to dig deeper, index more, and crawl more often: 1. Your key site navigation links should be text buttons, not images. Search engines can only crawl text and text links. You can still make your navigation elements attractive, without sacrificing the search engine benefits of text. 2. Keep your content fresh by regularly adding new content and updating existing web pages. By updating your Website, you stay fresh and relevant to visitors and keep them coming back. Plus, you are training the search engines to index your site more frequently, boosting your results. *Netcraft SSL Survey, 1/2012, showing marketshare at 65.6. Includes Symantec subsidiaries, resellers, and affiliates.
Tactic #7: Use SEO techniques for massive traffic. Once you know the language your customers use to find you and have designed your Website so that the search engines can easily identify it, build the kind of content that drives massive traffic and conversions. Here are six simple search engine optimization techniques that will help you rank higher in the search engines, while creating content that your visitors will love to read: 1. As much as possible, use keywords as your domain name, in all URLs, and in any directories or file names. 2. Include at least 250 words of visible HTML text content per page. Aim for 250-500 words and make sure they include the top 5 keywords, phrases, and common-sense variations. 3. Give each page a unique, keyword-rich TITLE tag and heading tags. 4. Use bold and italics tags to emphasize keywords. 5. Include keywords in text links to other web pages on your Website. 6. Optimize images by using keywords in each image s filename and by adding keywords in the ALT text in image tags. If you are not an HTML expert, don t worry. Your web development team will know exactly what you are talking about when you present them with these tips. Three Best Practices for Sales Teams Tactic #8: Give your sales team a cheat sheet. Your sales team has a lot going on. Handling high call volumes, staying on top of multiple products and services, and remembering a variety of pricing structures and special offers, it is difficult for them to keep it organized. To achieve a high closing rate and consistently sell the most profitable and relevant solutions, your sales team must be absolutely clear on the benefits of Symantec Website Security Solutions with SSL. At Symantec, we know that having a cheat sheet for your salesforce is the best solution something quick and concise that will help them stay on point to sell Symantec brand effectively. Symantec has created Symantec, GeoTrust and Thawte brand Partner Sell Sheets for your salesforce s convenience. From target markets, customer pain points, and product offerings, these sell sheets will make it easy to sell Symantec Website Security Solutions. Download the Partner Sell Sheets today on PartnerNet. http://go.symantec.com/wspp Tactic #9: Default to three-year terms. Most SSL certificates range from one to five-year terms. Symantec has extensively tested the default settings for which term provides the highest sales and profits, and these tests show that a three-year term is the sweet spot. Customers like the threeyear term, because they get a price break and they don t have to deal with certificate renewal decisions for several years. For you, the three-year term means that you can retain your customer relationships for longer periods of time, and ultimately increase your profitability. Make the three-year certificate term the default option in the enrollment path and during the renewal process. Better yet, when customers are renewing, build an attractive offer for three-year certificates and an even better offer for three-year certificates at the next product level up.
Tactic #10: Always add an upsell OR ADD TO CART. PRESENT an offer, don t give away profits. When your customer reaches an order screen, that s a perfect time to present an offer that promotes the next level of Website Security Solution or brand of SSL certificate. The customer has already made the mental commitment to buying. At this point, highly leverage your Website and the order process to upsell to Extended Validation (EV) or if you are selling GeoTrust, present an add to cart Website Anti-Malware Scan. Renewal sales stand out as the best time to offer an upsell promotion. Customers are likely happy with their product and the service you provide. Customize automated renewal notification messages or pitch your customer in the renewal enrollment path. There is no reason to give away more than needed. Driving customer behaviors and taking action can be quite successful through highly attractive offers. Many customers would purchase anyway because you offer value beyond a discount. The key to developing an offer that drives the right action lies in knowing your customer segments inside and out. Here are three simple ways to segment your customers and the offers that make sense for each: First-time visitors: For first-time visitors to your Website, you want to put your best foot forward. You should present the most attractive deal to them, but still allow room for partner profitability. Infrequent buyers: Entice this customer segment with something new via a cross-sell promotion or a limited-time offer to purchase a bundle or larger service offering. Loyal, frequent customers: Do not lower your margins by giving a discount to customers who would likely buy from you anyway. Instead, think about the behavior you want to drive, such as increasing average order size through premium bundles or upselling to higher margin products, and structure the offer accordingly. Better yet, use the fact that they are loyal by enticing them to give you a testimonial. This will help them see that you appreciate the patronage and at the same time, increase your marketing opportunity on your site, in your collateral, and in social media. Follow up with your Symantec Channel Account Manager to inquire about specific campaigns, edms, advertising, web banners, ad copy, etc., that have been created for partners to use for end customer marketing. Partners can also visit PartnerNet to find the right branded or themed campaign for their needs at http://go.symantec.com/wspp. Conclusion: Don t Stop at 10 Tactics. At Symantec, we are committed to the success of your business. These 10 best practices are just a sample of how Symantec can enable partners to be even more successful. Visit PartnerNet to access more compelling sales and marketing tools, training, online resources, and current webinars. Symantec protects the world s information, and is the global leader in security, backup and availability solutions. Our innovative products and services protect people and information in any environment from the smallest mobile device, to the enterprise data center, to cloud-based systems. Symantec Website Security Solutions encryption products and identity and authentication technology enable organizations to deliver comprehensive data protection with proven standards-based technology and provides capabilities for protecting information and identities online. More information is available at www.symantec.com/ssl For more information, please contact: us: 866-893-6565 (opt. 6) or 650-426-3347 (opt. 6) germany: +49 69380789081 France: +33 157324268 (France) uk: +44 2034505486 (UK) africa: +27 21 819 2800(S. Africa) or channel-partners@symantec.com Copyright 2012 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec Logo, and the Checkmark Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Symantec helps organizations secure and manage their information-driven world with security management, endpoint security, messaging security, and application security solutions.