Categories
Sales & Marketing

How Offline and Online Marketing Can Work Together

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?

offline_online_mrktg

Categories
Sales & Marketing

5 Ways to Supercharge Your Sales Team

Supercharged-Creative-Commons

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.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Mastering Sales: You Know What to Do, but Do You Know How to Do It?

sales_chart

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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Be Your Company’s Salesperson With These 5 Negotiation Tips

tug of war between businessmen

Article Contributed by Dennis Hung

Business owners are used to wearing many hats. This is likely why many of them assume the role of their company’s top salesperson. After all, they are the face of the company and the most likely to approve special deals and below market prices. However, what does it take to become a top salesperson? Better yet, how can a business owner assume this all-important role and what strategies should they employ when negotiating with customers?

  1. Handling Roadblocks and Objections

When it comes to sales negotiation training, few approaches work as well as preparing for the worst. Granted, it’s important to remain positive, and this is by no means a declaration that you should expect to lose or think negatively. That isn’t the intention here. However, the best salespeople have a way of immediately reacting to customer objections and roadblocks.

So, why are they so adept at responding to these customer stall tactics? Well, for the most part, they’ve practiced their responses long before they get on the phone with a customer. They can anticipate what the customer will say because they’ve gone through multiple scenarios and develop a series of readymade answers.

Your customers will try and stump you. They will try to throw you off guard. They’ll claim your pricing is too high, your products aren’t good enough and that your competitors are always one-step ahead of you. However, if you know what they’re likely to say before they say it, then you’ll be better positioned to handle these objections and move the discussion forward. Be prepared by doing your homework well in advance.

  1. Using “what if”

Part of being prepared for negotiations means to anticipate the kind of concessions your customer is likely to ask for. In this case, you need to employ the “what if” scenario. Think of all the possible requests your customer can come up with and develop a list of requests of your own.

For instance, if your customer requests a lower price, then you might request a higher volume or at least a commitment on their part to purchasing a larger volume over time. A good rule of thumb is to create a list of high-value customer requests and a list of your own high-value requests. As much as possible, try and match what your customer is asking for with an equally-important request of your own. After all, customers expect some push-back when they negotiate with vendors so don’t be a pushover.

  1. Remain Silent

Surprisingly, silence does speak volumes when it comes to closing a sale. Unfortunately, far too many salespeople are uncomfortable with silence. They are convinced they have to speak for the customer. The next time you make a final offer, stay quiet and don’t say anything until your customer does. It works.

  1. Defending Pricing

If you give your customer a price they’ve never received from their own vendors, or aren’t likely to get anytime soon from anyone else but you, then you’re well within your right to defend that price. Most salespeople falter here. They think it’s the customer’s right to use their pricing against them. It isn’t.

As a business owner, be prepared to defend your pricing. Make it clear that your customer can’t just shop your price. Success in negotiation is about having respect for each party and standing your ground. Your customers will respect you more if you explain to them how much it takes to give them below market pricing.

  1. Role Playing

The only way to get better at negotiation is to role play multiple scenarios. In fact, negotiation is ultimately about how two parties reach an agreement, one both sides are satisfied with. This ultimately involves a lot of practice. Ask an employee to play the role of a customer and have them give you an honest assessment of your performance. It will help you understand how you come across, and it will give you invaluable insight into how customers think and react when you’re in the middle of a negotiation.

Business owners are most often their company’s number one salesperson. As such, it’s important to use all of these aforementioned strategies and practice with likeminded individuals and professionals. It will help you better understand your own strengths and weaknesses when negotiating.

About the author:

Dennis Hung is an entrepreneur and product analyst specializing in mobile technology and IoT. He’s spent most of his career consulting for businesses in North America.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Tips for Marketing Controversial Products

Tips for Marketing Controversial ProductsControversial products can stir up attention with little difficulty, but marketing them in the best light for business can be a struggle. Many companies have found it difficult to market controversial products, and some have found that their chosen tactics have backfired and resulted in a failed venture.Follow these steps and discover the tactics you can utilize to sell your potentially controversial product.

Make a Plan

A business plan is important for any marketing strategy, but especially so for those looking to market a controversial product or service. Knowing your company’s ideals, values, and goals is essential to creating a thriving business. Putting in the necessary time and work before beginning your marketing strategy could mean the difference between a botched campaign and a profitable product. You need to set specific objectives, and follow these closely throughout your marketing campaign. Look for companies who may help cross-promote you, or find publishers that are open to honestly reviewing your product so that you have support before the real work begins.

Controversial Product, Not Controversial Marketing

For some controversial products or services, an equally eye-catching and, in some circles, “offensive” marketing campaign can pay off. However, not all controversial products are created the same. Maybe your product can be easily made fun of and seen as the perfect gag gift, meaning humor should be a large part of your strategy. Adversely, perhaps your product needs to be advertised with a “responsible usage” claim, meaning a serious tone would be more applicable.

Understand the tone needed, and go with it, as it could make or break your campaign. One controversial Hyundai ad was pulled after it made light of suicide, showing the campaign went too far to be acceptable for the general public. Making a joke of something people deem dangerous or inappropriate may not help your case, and remaining too serious with a product that should inspire laughs could end your business. It’s a delicate balance, and it’s essential that you master it.

Know Your Competitor

It’s likely your product has some competitors. Know them, understand their business, their target audience, and what you can offer that they don’t. Learn from marketing mistakes they may have already made, and produce a product that does what they do better. At the same time, look at the marketing strategies that worked for them, and borrow the most useful tactics.

Endorsement

Celebrity endorsement can be a helpful tool to market your controversial item. You may even need to delve into an industry to find the perfect spokesperson. One exampleis found in the marketing techniques of electronic cigarette company NJOY. They catered to their dedicated audience by creating an Artist’s Collection of NJOY e cig juice with five leading vape industry artists. This expanded their brand awareness within the already active vaping community, and created a product unique to the company.

Target Audience

Do research on your target market, and know your customers before you begin the marketing process. You don’t want to risk alienating a group who might have been your biggest buyer. Another majorcomponent of targeting your audience: know how you’re going to reach them. Depending on the product and type of market you’re striving to reach, there may be channels you simply can’t advertise your item on. Understanding the rules regarding your product, including those put in place by television, print, social media, or even stores can help you avoid wasting lucrative time and money. Disregarded regulations can result in high fines, which is something no starting business wants or needs.

Expert Knowledge, Expert Rebuttals

If you’re selling a controversial item, you’re going to run into those who hate it. Expect it and accept it. You’ll no doubt run into naysayers that try to use every argument in the book against your product for whatever reason, but you can prepare yourself to refute any false claims. Know your product, know its uses, and be prepared to defend it to those who seek to thwart your sales. You should have all information available to consumers. This complete transparency may help your product find its niche and avoid any potential legal issues.

Understanding your product and audience will help you form a marketing campaign that will most effectively sell your controversial item. Be prepared for adversaries, but arm yourself with the knowledge that your item serves a purpose and can find a dedicated audience.