By Brandon Banks
There are several critical factors that software executives need to consider when developing a go-to-market strategy for their integrated payment processing services. As you may already know, a successful go-to-market strategy is crucial for positioning, marketing, and selling any product or service effectively. Therefore, it’s essential to understand the key components and factors that contribute to the development of a comprehensive strategy built to optimize conversion and drive profitable margins.
Developing the value proposition
If you want to stand out from other payment processing services, crafting a compelling value proposition is key. This statement should address why your integrated payment service offers something more valuable than those that are not integrated and answer the question of why customers should choose yours above all else.
For example, you could showcase the ease of having payment processing services built into your software platform. Highlight how it will not only save customers precious time but also minimize errors by reducing the need for manual reconciliation and entry of transactions and invoices.
Developing the sales story
Your sales story should build on your value proposition to help customers understand the full picture. This should be a concise but detailed explanation of how your integrated payment processing services can help customers achieve their desired results. It should focus on the customer’s pain points and address any potential objections they may have.
Finally, a sales story should also contain data that supports its claims. This could include customer testimonials, research findings, or case studies. This will help to illustrate the tangible benefits customers can expect when using your services and build trust in your offering.
Leverage and levers
To attract and convert customers, you can pull various levers such as:
- offering promotional pricing
- providing superior customer support
- integrating with popular payment methods
Simplifying and streamlining the sign-up process for payment services can also help reduce friction and make it easier for customers to adopt the integrated payment service.
The most powerful lever is the leverage you have with customers by virtue of your software. They’ve bought from you, they trust you, and they are a captive audience that you can engage to deliver a superior integrated payments product.
Sales and support strategy
Developing a sales and support strategy is essential to ensure the successful adoption of the integrated payment service. This includes the following:
- determining the roles and responsibilities of sales and support teams
- developing processes for onboarding
- lead management
- pricing negotiation
- account activation
- establishing metrics for tracking success and accountability
You and your payment processing partner will need to work together to determine which party will assume specific roles and responsibilities. This strategy should be dynamic and custom for you, and give you the flexibility to change and tweak overtime.
Marketing assets
Developing effective marketing assets is crucial for promoting the integrated payment service to potential customers. This includes creating email campaigns, webinars, video content, and other marketing collateral. Your marketing efforts should showcase the benefits of the integrated payment services to complement and highlight your software’s core value proposition.
Be sure to utilize your partner’s payment expertise when creating new marketing assets. That way, you can rest assured that your messaging is accurate and up-to-date with the latest payment processing trends and terminology.
Alignment and incentives
A successful go-to-market strategy needs to ensure that the sales team is motivated and incentivized to sell the integrated payment processing services. This means that they need to understand the value proposition and sales story. You want to ensure they have the necessary knowledge and training to sell effectively before your payment service goes live.
Your sales team also needs to be rewarded for selling these services, either through commissions, bonuses, or other incentives. There needs to be complete alignment between sales and your company’s ambitions from payments. The mechanisms need to be in place to drive sales behavior that will maximize conversion and profitability.
Without the right incentives and levers, salespeople will not want to complicate their sales process when it comes to selling the software’s core service, and will fail to sell payments at high margins or even avoid selling the integrated payment services entirely.
Final thoughts
Designing a comprehensive go-to-market strategy for payment processing services involves many factors and components. By developing a strong value proposition, sales story, marketing assets, and leveraging various levers to attract and convert customers, you can maximize conversion rates and profitability.
Additionally, establishing a sales and support strategy and tracking metrics for success can ensure the successful adoption of the integrated payment service. With a well-executed go-to-market strategy, you can differentiate your company from the competition and drive long-term growth and success.