Companies must have a good sales strategy, this helps to align the objectives of the entire sales team, and improve customer purchase levels.
The design of a sales strategy should be done every few years and this includes several departments within the company, in this case, marketing, customer service and of course, the sales area.
What is a sales strategy?
A sales strategy is a type of strategy that aims to achieve certain sales objectives, previously established objectives.
In other words, sales strategies are all the plans that a company, brand or person carries out to sell its products or services with the intention of making a profit.
For these strategies to be successful, all the components of any company must be involved, and their effectiveness does not depend solely on the sales department. An important part of the sales strategy will be the marketing department, since it will create many of the strategies to sell more or at least find new customers in the different digital channels.
Types of sales strategies
There are multiple types of sales strategies, but there are two more general classifications:
- Outbound: Companies use this type of strategy to send communications or messages through paid advertisements, reaching customers directly, thus selling a product or service by reaching customers and attracting the attention of many people.
Outbound marketing goes beyond advertising in various media, whether radio, TV, print media, or on the Internet through online advertising platforms, it allows advertisers to make themselves known to the world and allows a person to become a buyer.
- Inbound: Also known as attraction marketing, are techniques that allow the brand to reach customers, within this strategy you can find the definition of buyer persona or ideal customer, and reach these people in a more subtle way or offering something of value.
Generating valuable content can attract the customer, so the customer can find the company, products or services with valuable content, through channels such as social networks, blogs, videos, among others.
Planning a sales strategy
- Analyze the situation of the sales area in your company.
To begin with, you should analyze the duration of the sales cycle, the points of contact between the customer and the brand, the conversion rate, the level of sales and investment in a previous study period, which are the customers with the highest engagement and which are the most or least sold products or services.
- Analyzes how the competition performs.
This is important to know what you are doing well and where you can improve, also identify which are the preferred channels of the audience that is looking for products and services similar to those offered by your business.
- Create a buyer persona.
This is the definition of an ideal customer, a customer profile, here we know who they are, how they act, their occupations, hobbies, income level, etc.
With this we will be able to know which channels to use and how to design effective communications and sales actions that best meet their needs.
- Define your SMART objectives.
In this step you know and classify the different objectives you have when creating this strategy. Among the objectives are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
- Set a budget.
To achieve income you must invest in effective actions, that is why you must set a budget.
Within the definition of the budget, there must be the reason or the action to which the money will be directed.
- Communicate your strategies
It is important, after having well structured your strategy it is important to link all the teams, and define objectives for each of the members, so that the objectives can be aligned and achieved in the best way.
- Measure results
After the whole process of implementing and carrying out the strategy, you must measure the results according to the sales goals previously proposed, this is how you define if the strategy was a success or on the contrary you must reconsider or restructure the actions taken.
Examples of sales strategy
Loyalty programs
Retaining a brand’s existing customers is much more profitable than acquiring new ones. Loyalty programs focus on achieving repeat sales by offering incentives to the brand’s customers.
Email marketing
Email marketing is a very versatile tool in a marketer’s arsenal. As it is a direct and one-to-one communication channel, it is very suitable for lead nurturing and loyalty processes, as well as to reinforce push campaigns in a timely manner.
Networking
This is mostly used in the sale of services, the reality is that no matter what type of service is offered, contacts and good relationships with other businesses, professionals and companies will help your business take off.
Invest time in networking, as this is an effective and economical sales strategy.
Cross-selling
Cross-selling seeks to encourage purchases among existing customers of the brand, offering complementary products to others they have already purchased or are going to purchase at that moment. A very typical example of cross-selling is the personalized recommendations of marketplaces such as Amazon.
Events
Events, both online and offline, can be used to get in direct contact with an audience potentially interested in our offer and generate sales opportunities. One of the latest trends in this regard are live online sales events.
Webinars
Webinars are the typical face-to-face seminar or workshop taken online, they are usually free, but they can also be paid for without any problem, as long as the material is worthwhile, but the most common is to opt for a mixed option.
That is, value is delivered for free and at the end of the webinar if you offer a paid product or service.
Testimonials
The best strategies to increase sales are based on demonstrating the results that can be achieved with a product and/or service, so testimonials are always a good option.
To sell online we need to build trust and credibility and for that it is essential to demonstrate results, if you offer training courses or services, you should include this sales strategy in your repertoire.
Chatbots
The combination of Facebook advertising, email marketing and chatbots can be one of the most powerful sales strategies there is, few companies have dared to use this marketing technique but it can achieve really interesting conversions.
Selling by telephone
When we are talking about selling a high-priced product and/or service, it is best to try to close the sale over the phone, on the phone we can perfectly talk to our potential customer, ask him what problems he intends to solve and what are his objections to buying.
Read: Salesforce clouds that we recommend as Salesforce partners
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