We may be used to reading a customer’s body language when they’re sitting across the table, but what about remotely when they’re browsing online? Eloqua’s Stuart Wheldon explains how to read and respond to a prospects’ buying behaviour in the web 2.0 world.

Today’s fastest-growing businesses have embraced the web as a platform and are using its strengths to connect them with prospective buyers. In addition to positioning their corporate websites as portals of relevant content, smart companies are also transforming their sales and marketing processes to take advantage of the behavioural information that the web provides.

This online behaviour – website visits, white paper downloads, email responses and more – can help businesses quickly identify buyers that are raising their hands to show interest in their solution. It is a new ‘digital body language’ that must be captured, interpreted and responded to.

Traditional transactions

The traditional B2B transaction has been almost entirely a sales function rooted in face-to-face interactions at business lunches, boardroom presentations and product demos. Once the lead had been passed to the sales team, marketing contributed little to the process.

The best sales professionals were highly adept at reading body language and buying signals revealed during in-person meetings in a conference room or over lunch. Subtle gestures such as facial expressions, eye contact, raised eyebrows, head nods or crossed arms could tell savvy sales professionals much about a prospect’s buying disposition. However, as the buying process moves online, salespeople are getting less face time with clients.

We’re more clued-up than ever before when it comes to non-verbal communication and we reckon we know how to read people’s ‘hidden agenda’. But are we really as savvy as we think, asks Tina Lofthouse?

Only 7% of how we communicate is down to the words we use – so claims a body of research that stresses that it really isn’t what we say, it’s the way that we say it.

Some experts have gone further, reckoning that, if we can master body language and how we communicate non-verbally, then the world is our oyster – providing the key to greatness; many a business training course extols the virtues of the likes of mirroring and powerful handshakes.

But is it really that simple and how much of it can actually make a difference to the salesperson trying to develop that all-important rapport, for instance? The reality is that, while being aware of body language is crucial, most people know when it is not natural and is being used to manipulate a situation.