Unless you’re completely satisfied with your order books and you think you’re getting maximum value for money from all your promotional campaigns, the chances are you’ll be able to find ways to improve your company’s approach to sales. Here, we take a look at four of the steps you may be able to take to achieve this.
There can be various ways to gain consumer interest in your product and service line-up. But before moving on to methods of client engagement, you should find the most effective channel to promote and market your offerings.
Weigh all your marketing options to best suit the type of product you intend to sell and to whom. For B2B sales, you could analyse previous statistical results of mail vs email marketing efforts to find the best responses among the two. And if it is B2C sales, you could look at social media channels, SMS and email marketing methods.
Once you have a suitable trajectory charted out, you can take a look at four of the steps to take to achieve higher sales.
- Engage with consumers face-to-face
If you’re struggling to get noticed among your target audience, it could be time to start taking advantage of face-to-face sales. In a blog post focussing on this topic, direct marketing and fundraising specialists Appco UK point out that engaging with people face-to-face can be a highly effective way to increase brand recognition. Appco also highlight the fact that this approach gives you a good opportunity to provide people with in-depth information about what it is you have to offer and it provides consumers with a chance to ask questions.
- Do more to encourage customer loyalty
Attracting new customers is of course essential if your business is to grow, but it’s also important to encourage existing customers to make repeat purchases. There are a number of ways to foster customer loyalty. On a basic level, ensure you focus on providing the best customer care you possibly can. By making customers feel valued and appreciated and by providing an enjoyable shopping experience, you can significantly increase the chances that they will come back to you in the future.
Running reward schemes such as loyalty points can play a role in this too and you may also want to consider sending personalised post-purchase email adverts to your customers recommending further products or services.
- Hone your social media skills
Social media’s about much more than simply having a Facebook profile or sending the occasional tweet. By honing your skills in this area of marketing, you can reach out to a wider audience and potentially dramatically increase your sales. For example, running competitions that encourage people to like or follow your social media pages or posts can increase your exposure on these sites. You might also benefit from tagging social influencers who have a big following. Where appropriate, reference current events too. By keeping track of trending hashtags and incorporating them into your posts, you can join bigger conversations and expand your reach.
- Pay closer attention to ROI
It’s easy to spend a lot of money on your marketing campaigns and end up failing to get a good return on your investment. To reduce the risk of this happening, it helps to bear a few simple principles in mind. For example, make sure you set clear and measurable objectives at the outset of your campaigns and look for accurate ways to track your results against these goals. Also, if you’re using third-party service providers for some of your promotional activity, choose companies you can rely on to deliver good value for money. If you’re planning a face-to-face sales campaign, bear in mind that certain specialists – including Appco Group – run performance-based payment systems that ensure you only pay for the results you actually see.