Category: Sales & Marketing

Every entrepreneur knows that the days of marketing their business or brand online being optional are long gone. Nowadays, no matter what sort of company you own, having a strong online presence is essential if you want your business to grow and thrive.

However, marketing your brand online isn’t easy. As they say, if it was then everyone would do it. Too many times, entrepreneurs make some classic blunders when it comes to trying to build their online marketing presence. To help ensure that you become a success rather than a disaster, here are the five biggest digital marketing mistakes that entrepreneurs make.

Hiring Shady Marketers To Do Their Work For Them

This is a mistake that those who aren’t technologically savvy sadly make far too often. There are many firms and individuals out there who claim to be online marketing professionals, but in reality don’t have the skills or expertise necessary to really take your brand to the next level. What they will do, however, is charge you a lot of money for work that you probably could have done yourself after watching a few short tutorials on using social media. Avoid falling for these scams by really researching any marketing company with whom you do business.

Not Marketing To Their Demographic

When you market your brand online, your priority should be reaching your target demographic. For example, if you run a translating website, you’d want to really reach those businesspeople who do a lot of work abroad with foreign clients. When you market online, don’t just try to push your brand on everyone. Instead, make a concerted effort to really reach your core demographic. It’s better strategically to really go after your core audience instead of just casting a wide net and hoping that you catch a few of the right people in the process.

“Spamming” Social Media Instead Of Using It Wisely

If you’re using your Twitter and Facebook accounts to just send non-stop blasts that don’t say much beyond just linking to your storefront, then you’re using social media completely incorrectly. Not only that, but you’re alienating your potential customers. Don’t “spam” Facebook and Twitter. Instead, put in the time and effort to have a real dialogue with your followers and to evolve as a brand that has interesting things to say.

Being Too Gimmicky

It’s always great to have something that really catches the eyes of potential customers. However, those brands that are obviously trying to “go viral” are exhausting and unattractive to the general public. Avoid anything that feels gimmicky or insincere. If you’re recording a YouTube video or uploading a picture to Facebook that feels like a cheap, forced ploy to get views, don’t do it. Always strive to be sincere and to create something genuine that customers will organically love.

A Lack Of Originality

In today’s competitive digital landscape, the worst thing that you can be is reductive. If you’re creating your online marketing strategy by just observing the strategies of your competitors and stealing from them, you’ll never stand out in the crowded landscape. It’s a good idea to see what successful people have done and use it as inspiration. It’s a terrible idea, however, to simply rip people off. You should see what similar brands are doing and use it as inspiration, but ultimately come up with something completely original and unique.

It can be hard to stand out in this day and age, where just about every entrepreneur is doing his or her best to really stand out in the world of digital marketing. However, if you can avoid the above blunders, you’ll be halfway there to creating a successful online marketing strategy. Don’t expect your brand to take off overnight. A great online marketing campaign can take years to really get attention. But if you stick with it and create something organic and truly great, eventually customers will indeed take notice.

You can be forgiven for thinking that the answer to ‘is offline marketing dead?’ is yes, it is.

The problem with assuming that we because we live in a technological age that everything from shopping to promotion must be done online is missing the point. You may only run your business online and not have a presence on the high street – you may think that this effectively excludes you from offline marketing.

The problems are many and varied but the online world is a crowded one. It is fast-paced – your tweet is sent at 10:42 and 6 seconds and by 10:42 and 8 seconds it has been swamped by thousands of other tweets.

Your posts are regular and consistent but they are in battle with the posts of a competitor who has a bigger budget – they pay someone to post, tweet, share and like on a regular basis. You, on the other hand, spend an hour a day scheduling tweets and posts on your social media management program.

If you rely solely on online advertising, you are working hard and making small steps to success. To boost this success, offline advertising and promotion is the channel.

Sadly, many companies and businesses will, with their marketing budget under pressure once again this year, choose to offload offline marketing, assuming that it is so last year… Big mistake, and here’s why:

• The internet is NOT everything

We grant you, the vast majority of us are connected 24/7 to our mobiles, laptop, tablet and so on but, not everyone is. And, even if we are, poster campaigns, roller banners, outdoor banners, postcards through the letterbox are still fabulous visual means of capturing imagination.

Impulse buying is not a new phenomenon. But, a well-printed leaflet through the door on a Sunday afternoon has long been one way of stoking excitement in a customer and boom! – they buy from you. Think of this as the takeaway menu through the letterbox at tea time…

• Great for start-ups

Offline promotion is not the sole domain of start-ups and small businesses; we want to make that clear right now. You do not reach a point or size where you can safely ditch offline marketing.

For a start-up however, offline marketing is a channel that possess extra power. Your website may be in the early stages, SEO may not be set just right and so your creeping up the listings is happening slowly.

Why not boost some of that traffic, and sales, with a carefully executed offline marketing campaign? Leaflets through doors, adverts in local papers or a carefully orchestrated poster campaign can make for a welcome boost in sales, as well as more visitors to your website.

• Tangible

Something that is tangible, is something that can be touched and held in your hand. This, in terms of marketing, can be a useful concept to remember.

At one time, ‘junk mail’ or door-to-door leaflet drops happened all the time. Free newspapers would be full of competing information too. But today, this is very different. No longer in the front door mat littered with ads – but your email inbox could well be.

This is why many businesses are once again looking to grab new customers by giving them something tangible. From coupons to menus, online codes to freebies, promotional channels that are offline are still very much trusted by the consumer.

• Guerrilla offline marketing

You may have come across this; it is where a marketing campaign uses a creative approach to get people talking about the business, product or service. There are many examples online and you can gain the same, if not better results for less money, offline.

Amnesty International highlighted the plight of human trafficking with a powerful offline stunt. They employed a female gymnast to be crumpled in a clear suitcase. She was then, for short periods, seen in various transport hubs such as airports and so on. The reaction was electric; the campaign memorable and the message much-talked about.

• Something different

You don’t have to spend thousands of offline advertising and promotion and you may like the idea of guerrilla marketing but are unsure as to the impact it will have for you.

Walked the streets of any busy city, and you will see various people in sandwich boards handing out leaflets. Anything from ‘serving lunch now’, to ‘10% off all purchases today with this leaflet’ are common – and they work.

Hitting the streets can be one way of enticing in new customers, and doing something different is also a good way of attracting attention too. Try it because, what do you have to lose?

The infographic delves into how offline and online marketing can work together and explores the following areas:

• Where do companies spend their money and what provides the best ROI?
• Where do companies spend their offline advertising budget?
• Where are companies spending their online advertising budget?
• Which marketing option tends to provide the best ROI?
• How to drive offline conversions through online marketing?
• What online marketing channels do companies spend most money on?
• What offline marketing channels do companies spend most money on?
• How can specific offline and online marketing channels work together?

Article Contributed by Sawaram Suthar

“The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” ~ Peter Drucker

And, growing sales graph is one of the main objectives of every company management; and to reach either of objectives, brand relies on its ever dependable sales team.  In the game of chess, the winner of the board at times is the one who more effectively utilizes the front soldiers. Same is in the corporate world, more often the top and bottom line of company is decided by its agile sales force. A sales team is not about only pushing the products to the customer, but it is very vital medium connecting brands to the customers and acts both ways, providing information to the customers and collects customer feedback for the company, for necessary adaptation as per client wish. “Customer is the King” says Philip Kotler, and to extend the phrase serve the king with your best man. However, Sales team is not mechanical or computer code, and is to be handled accordingly for effective results.

Clarity and Communication from Management –

In words of Brian Tracy, “Your ability to communicate with others will account for 85% of success in your business and life”. The objectives, mission statement and the vision of the company have to be clearly detailed out to all the employees especially the sales Team. Sales team is not mere pushers of the product or service to the customers but the representative of the company. Hence proper equipped sales person with ethos of the company and knowing the objective and goal, will deliver much better and efficiently to the company.

Communication plays a very important role, communication between management and sales team, between operational department and sales force. A proper detailed information of the product/services to be sold, gears up sales force up for the task.

Motivate the team –

As Bryan Eisenberg is quoted, “Our job as marketer is to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so.” And, to do the same, we need to have supercharged sales team. However, dishing out constant targets to the sales team maybe the necessity for the company’s bottom line, but certainly not the smart move always. Keeping sales team upbeat and agile through motivation delivers more than exerting pressure of targets. A motivated sales team can fight all odds out to keep the company targets. 

One of the way to achieve motivation for the team is create homely and family type environment, beyond internal competition; intra company competition has chances of bitterness, instead work with incentive scheme, with idea of co-optation and team work.

Inviting spouses of the team to the company functions, having fantasy sports organized quarterly or in time bound manner, not only keeps sales team mentally fit but also enthused to work for the company beyond target and commission set.

Providing with the company collaterals –

In current scenario, where information is flooded all around, it is prudent to equip the soldier of the company with best of the weapons, knowledge for the battle field. Also, having synchronized add lo sharpness to communication. It’s important, not only deliver one focused message, but also having one common synchronized style or stationery. Client looks for consistency and sales team with synchronized and common stationery only assists sales team in their job of convincing prospective clients.

It’s in the trend now a day, to hire professional trade printers, who not only suggests common theme for brochure, but same theme is then carried forward to all communication to other marketing collaterals. Few companies also extend similar theme to their social media engagement, as consistency of theme and communication plays very important role in assuring the customers.

CRM / Automation –

Although known as Customer Relationship Management, this tool is potent for the sales team. CRM is a wider aspect, and it details out various and all the engagements with the clients right from lead generation to after sales delivery, which also records other preferences of the customers. This huge ocean of data on customers among other thing arms the sales team to customize their offering and communication accordingly which suits the customers.

Informed sales tea, is more of valuable asset for company in growing the sales chart, as uninformed sales team may not able to convince the customer. Not only CRM prepares sales team but also increase customer engagement.

The tool also works digitally well, hence cuts out lengthy paperwork for the sales team, and readily available tool works out the performance and report chart, which also identifies the area to be focused by sales team and identifies the activity which delivers more result

Supportive and agile Customer service backend –

A responsive and agile support system for the client acts as boon for the sales team, which alleviates lot of undue pressure from sales team and helps them focus on their core work.

Having strong social media team assists sales team like none other, as 66.67 percent of internet users are also on social media and almost 73 percent of online purchasers uses social media to know the review among other things of the products.

Constantly updated informative website backed with agile customer service centers both web and phone, help sales team to reassure the client of after sales. A strong backend of informative and customer service department is most potent necessities of the sales team to have engagement with the customer with confidence and thus convince them for lasting relation with the brands

Author Bio

Sawaram Suthar is a digital marketing geek, helping small and medium business grow their businesses. Currently he is marketing consultant at Skyward Techno, Inc that provides CRM and ERP. Anyone can reach him @sawarams or via his blog thenextscoop.com.

Anyone can read a book about sales. You can learn what to do easily by reading books and observing other people. But how do you figure out how to do those things? You know the methods, but do you know the knowledge behind those methods? The little details mean a lot when you’re talking about sales training. You need to know how to succeed in sales, and this goes beyond knowing what to do.

Sales negotiation training gives you the knowledge of what to do and how to do it. This combination will prove most successful in your endeavors to close more deals and increase revenue generated through sales. If you’re a sales manager at a successful organization, then you want to bring talented people on board to take your company to the next level. Consider these aspects of sales training that will complete the knowledge and abilities of sales representatives in your company.

1. Negotiations

You know that you will need to negotiate. But do you know how? Many sales are lost in the negotiation phase. Untrained reps make mistakes time and time again that could have been avoided with sales training. Consider these tips to excel in negotiations.

– Don’t offer first. Make sure the other side offers first in negotiations. You get to work around what they are feeling about the deal. You can get them to make concessions right away if their side presents their deal first.

– Study the other side thoroughly. This begins before you even meet them for negotiations. What do they believe in for business? Are they known as an aggressive negotiator? LinkedIn is a great resource to learn about people before you meet them. Be sure to use it to your full advantage.

– Have specific goals in mind. Once you reach your goals in negotiations, then it’s time to wrap things up. You should have a well-defined mission each time you begin negotiating with someone. If you want to do more business later, you can. Form a good business relationship with them first before making someone your preferred contact for sales.

2. Pass Accumulated Knowledge Along

Your new hires need to know the culture and work habits of your current sales team. Everyone wants to crush quota and be the top seller in the organization. But your new hires are at a disadvantage. They know that they need to sell, but they don’t know how. When they’re new to your company, their previous training can only help them out so much. At that point it is up to you and your team to share all the accumulated knowledge you have about your customers and your sales tactics.

If you can’t directly mentor the new sales representative, then you must find someone who can. Find one of your top sellers who may be headed into a management role soon. Depending on their personality, they should relish the opportunity to take a young sales rep under their wing for a while. They’ll need to show them the ropes as it pertains to making new sales and the procedures your company uses to do so.

3. Handle Customer Pain Points

Even a novice sales rep knows they need to overcome the customer pain points. But do they know how to do that? If they can figure it out, then their sales figures will skyrocket. Handling customer pain points sets the good reps apart from the great reps. Handling a pain point is one aspect of sales training that everyone could use more often. Consider these tips for handling customer pain points.

– A pain point is a problem. Your customer will only buy something if they know their problems and if they know that your product will solve those problems. So how do you uncover the problems?

– Challenge client views. You want to do this nicely and professionally of course. But a great new sales technique involves challenging the business beliefs of the client. They may not know they have an issue until you point it out to them. Once they realize that you are correct about one of their problems, you are much more likely to make a sale.

– Present yourself as a problem solver. The way to do this is to ask a lot of questions that will get the customer talking. In the process of your conversation, you might find that the customer has an issue that your products will take care of. Suggest ways that the customer can improve business with your help.

– You must follow up. What is your client doing a few weeks after your last discussion? If you didn’t make a sale, maybe you just need to discuss a different pain point than before. You never know what kind of information your customer might reveal a second time around.