There are plenty of affordable marketing tools and resources that can help build awareness of your business. But as your customers move through the sales funnel, it takes a little more effort–and a solid sales strategy–to close the final purchase.
Integrating a sales strategy as you grow your business can help ensure you’re building strong personal relationships with your customers; the kind of relationships that keep them as loyal fans for life. These inexpensive sales strategies can work for both start-up and longstanding businesses to improve lifelong customer value.
When approaching your target market, the possibilities seem endless. There are multiple customer segments, but they come with steep competition in most industries. Rather than get lost in the crowd, lead your sales team to focus on small niche groups where you can start to build momentum.
Think about the unique problem your product or service solves, and connect with those customers who most urgently need your solution. From there, you can expand your sales outreach once you have your pitch down and some sales under your belt.
A technique to try is lead scoring, which “ranks” your sales prospects on a scale from one to ten. The more points a lead has, the more total value you feel that lead can bring to your business. Lead scoring helps sales teams prioritize their time and energy. Ensure your team spends their time on their most valuable prospects. Ask them to prioritize the concerns of leads in the eight, nine, and ten categories first.
There are many tools to help you automate elements of the sales process, which enables your sales team to spend time on high value-add tasks rather than repetitive processes. Try creating an automated email drip campaign; that is, an email sequence that sends messages based on specific timelines or the prospect’s actions. These actions could include a prospect subscribing to an email list, following up after a sales call, or even opening one of your company’s email messages.
Other opportunities to automate sales come via social media and chatbots. Make sure you have the right customer relationship management (CRM) tool in place to capture every interaction a lead has with your brand, across automated and in-person and digital channels.
Of course, referrals are the holy grail of sales, no matter the age of your business. Referrals cost next to nothing, move through the sales process more quickly, and often result in bigger sales, according to HubSpot.
There are a variety of ways to increase referrals or encourage word-of-mouth marketing. Start with those in your immediate network and reach out for referrals. Incentivize your customers to bring others in their networks for a discount or reward. Create a loyalty program based on referrals, as well as frequency of purchases.
These are all easy-entry methods to help you kickstart sales for your business, whether you’re a brand-new startup or an established icon in your community. No matter the conditions, there are always ways to up your sales.
It’s a great day in Emporia!
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“Let’s Talk Business” is a weekly column of the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce and Visit Emporia. The mission of the Chamber is to be proactive in creating an environment for business and community success, guided by the vision that positive attitudes promote positive actions. Contact us at 620-342-1600 or chamber@emporiakschamber.org and visit our website at www.emporiakschamber.org.