How to increase your sales and keep growth on track.

I have spent over twenty fives years selling and helping sales teams achieve their goals and objectives. In the current economic climate it's never been so tough to stand out from your competitors and really drive sales achievement through. 

However, there are still some fundamental techniques that you should be using. 

The following 5 ideas are ways your sales team can not merely survive, but actually grow during 2012. 

1. Increasing your advertising and marketing budget. 
2. Utilising the power of leverage. 
3. Focusing your efforts where they’ll are most useful. 
4. Correctly training your employees. 
5. Supplying excellent customer service and 

1. The first point I made is to actual increase your marketing budget. What seem strange to me, it that most companies in a recession reduce or even stop their marketing spend. Yet, it is at this very moment you need to win hearts and minds of prospects. 

You need to seen, be bold and creative. You need your products and services to stand out.

I have worked for too many companies who make this very mistake of  considering their marketing an expense as an alternative to an investment and wind up destroying their business by cutting back in this region and losing market share.

2. The second thought is to use the energy of leverage by hiring a company to do your business prospecting. They are so many ways nowadays to prospect: Telemarketing, Email marketing, Social Media to name but a few. Where an outsourced company can help your business is through leverage their expertise in these fields. 

No-one knows your business better than you and the same applies to leverage leads and prospect. This idea is linked to the first point. When times get tough, don't always turn to 'sharpening your pencil' as the right answer. Usual it is more to do with getting more customers.

3. If you have followed the two earlier points, you will be in a position now to concentrate your sales efforts where they matter the most, closing sales, seeing more customers, giving excellent customer services etc. 

4. Training is a vital part of any sales function, creating the right sales structure and then making sure your sales team have the right skills for their job, selling.   

5. Great customer service is what makes first time buyers, repeat customers. There is nothing more wasteful than having spent time, money and energy acquiring customers, only to lose them. 

Invest time in understanding what your customers want and importantly how they see your services. And remember, you have two types of customers: internal and external. 

Don't just get the opinion from outside your business, look inside to and ask them how they see your services levels. GO the extra mile, make customer feel special, but remember customer services isn't enough in 2012, you need customer experiences. 

Whats happening with advertising?

Media habits
People are NOT watching less TV. Over 95% of video watching hours still occur on TV. However, many multitask and use DVRs. People are moving away from print toward digital. Time spent on social networking sites continues to explode; up 83% vs. last year according to Nielsen Online. Mobile is a main device for connecting to the Internet in many countries and is increasing here; apps and text messages bring brand messages right to the point of purchase.

Advertising practices
While Advertising spending is down because of the recession, TV, digital, and shopper marketing appear to be gaining share at the expense of radio and print (based on latest reports from TNS media). My guess is that spending on creating Web sites, communities, widgets, staff needed to participate in social media, etc., is growing but we don't really know since it isn't reported. Print is challenged, especially by classified advertising moving online. While print media now all have digital versions, they find that their audiences and ad revenues do not automatically transfer.

Structural changes
It's about integration. Media companies are putting their content on multiple platforms, making content rather than medium the organizing principle. Advertisers are creating integrated marketing teams. Advertisers and media companies are directly negotiating cross-platform relationships with deep integration of the advertiser into the program content (so people can't fast forward past the message).

Ad effectiveness
Despite people saying in surveys they don't like advertising, it still works. Perhaps the biggest surprise to some is the evidence that TV advertising works as well as ever. Even display ads and search are proven to translate into business without a click.

At the ARF, our planning scenarios about advertising include:

1. Both push and pull advertising will continue to work and will show growth once the economy rebounds.
2. TV will remain an attractive advertising option.
3. Media companies will create synergy for properties across platforms (e.g. watch the TV show, interact with the show on TV or online) and offer integrated sponsorships to advertisers.
4. Advertisers will form integrated marketing teams and choose from a broad range of media strategies, sometimes driven by reach, sometimes driven by digitally-enabled targeted engagement approaches.
5. Marketers will embrace social media as the integration of advertising, PR, customer care, and research.
6. Retail will become increasingly powerful, encouraging more shopper marketing.
7. Advertisers will continue to think globally and will become increasingly multi-cultural in the U.S.

The evidence does not support the "advertising is dead" view that some express. Both push and pull advertising brings value to people's lives and continues to help marketers build great brands.

EnthralledROI: How best to improve your press adverts.

EnthralledROI: How best to improve your press adverts.: "It would seem that we’ve lost our way somewhat on the art of the advert and what makes an advert work. So I thought it only wise to reconfi..."

How best to improve your press adverts.

It would seem that we’ve lost our way somewhat on the art of the advert and what makes an advert work. So I thought it only wise to reconfirm just five simple yet effective principles of press adverting and how they can make a big difference in your marketing mix. 

Headlines: 

A powerful headline that will attract the reader's eye to your ad, it create an interruption in their thought process and screams read me. By using  relatively short phrases with action words related to your promotion. Word such as Imagine, Act, Read will grab the readers attention and make them carry out that desired action.  If the advert is part of an ongoing promotion or one of several used in various media outlets, keep your headlines consistent. Something I’ve been calling ‘all media engineering’ for over ten years.  Make sure the headline is presented in a very readable font.

Message: 

Be concise with the presentation of your promotion, sale or marketing message, make sure the message you are trying to communicate is short and straightforward. One of the most powerful tactics is the use of  bullet points rather than sentences. Highlight or bold recognisable brand names and promotion offerings. Include a call to action such as "call now," "visit our Web site," or "bring in this coupon."

Using Space effectively: 

Use black and white space effectively. Because newspapers are mostly words and crowded advertising space, large areas of white or black tend to attract the reader's eye. One of the most common mistakes is trying to use all the space in an advert. Remember, space actually sells, it create a sense of intrigue and confidence.  

Typography: 

Choose typefaces and graphics that will reinforce your brand and don’t work against it!  Limit your fonts to three at most to give your advert a clean and concise look and. Make sure they are very readable and reflect the tone of your advert. If you are selling a professional service the last thing you want is a bold and loud type face, where a more classic and sophisticated type face would have been more in line with the tonality of the advert. Consistency is key, using elements of your logo, illustrations or photography throughout the series of adverts or making sure that the other marketing collateral being used reflect the same. That way you are build up brand imagery and recognition in the readers memory.

Placement of vital information:

Give your logo and contact info the best placement. How many times do you struggle to read the contact details or the call to action. Remember to add the vital stuff; phone number, web address etc.  For newspaper advert, that means the bottom right corner. Because people read from left to right and top to bottom, placing your logo in the lower right will ensure that it is the last thing the reader sees as he scans your ad. 

This is written by Marcus Thrall of Enthralled Consultancy. We are a specialist b2b relationship marketing consultancy that helps businesses communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects alike through better communication strategies and tactics. For more insight on our services visit www.enthralled.biz 

If you're interested in find out how we can help you improve your press advertising click here www.enthrallwww.enthralled.biz/contacted.biz

Are the 4 P's still working today.

I still remember my first week at Ten10 Communications in London, thinking I had arrived in the bright world of advertising and marketing and how I was bound to become one of those creative ad men who would create something truly unique or be overseeing wonderful commercials being shot in the sun.

I travel home each night eager to learn something new and existing and that first week it was the 4 P’s of marketing. Price, Product, Promotion, Placement. My Account Manager give my their CIM workbook. Over the next twelve months it became my foundation stone, all my campaign logic was based on those principles.

Nearly twenty years later though the question has to be asked, do they still form the foundation of today’s marketing mix?

So let’s quickly review what they meant;

Product
What product is offered by British Telecom? It is certainly much more than the cables and telephone hand- sets which they provide. It is communication, reassurance when you call an elderly relative, happiness when you receive a call from somebody you love, excitement when you hear good news and sadness when you hear bad, and relief when he says he will come round at 10.00pm on Sunday night. Similarly a hotel is much more than a place to stay to sleep and eat. It may be a surrogate home when you are away on business, a haven of refuge when you are stranded, or a prison if you find yourself caught up in, say, the Gulf conflict. It may be a place to relax, to work, to entertain or be entertained, to confer or just to lie around in the sun. Deciding what business you are in, what your product is, is one of the key issues of marketing and to decide, you need information from your customers.

Promotion
Promotion is about telling people what you have to offer. It is not entirely separate from the product because what is said and how it is said influences how the product is seen. You sell ‘the sizzle not the sausages’, you certainly do not sell ‘carbonated water with vegetable extracts’, you sell Coke with all the images of sun, youth, vitality, and world-wide harmony.
Promotion includes advertising but also includes direct mail, public relations, printed brochures, presence at travel trade shows, and participation in joint marketing schemes. Promotion can be very expensive and it is often difficult to decide whether or not it is successful.

Price
Price is the one element in the marketing mix, which is what the 4 Ps are called, which provides revenue. The other three involve cost, which may explain why marketing is less popular than it might be. Price is often determined by the cost, with a margin being added to yield a profit or return on the investment. Marketing, however, would recommend using price strategically to help to achieve the goals of the business, varying the price according to the level of demand and the willingness of the market to pay the price. Marketing is about giving each product or business its ‘unique selling proposition’ so that it is different from all competitive products and can command a premium price.
Price is also an indicator of quality, particularly for the first time buyer, and while it remains so, subsequent purchases are much more concerned with judgement of value for money.

Placement
Place really means distribution. You can buy a packet of tissues almost anywhere but the places where you can buy tourism are relatively few. Nor is tourism very well packaged in the domestic market: It is much easier to buy an all-inclusive holiday abroad than to buy one in the UK.

Definition provided by Stuart Riley -Marketing Dept of  Lancaster University. 

So what as changed if anything? 

Well for starter one of my hero's,  Philip Kotler started to talk about the 4C's. Place has become Convenience to our end users.  Customers are now truly king, with the ability to where and when they purchase. Retailing is now all about click and mortar, online is now driven by social media pages. Social media phenomenons like Groupon are changign the face of localised placement.

But there is still placement. You still need to place you product / service somewhere but it's now dictated by the customer. They are choosing where and how to buy your products and you need to reactive positively to that interaction.

Price has become the in so ways the COST to the consumer. Traditionally it was the revenue making element of the 4 P's. However, now you have to consider how that perceived cost would affect the purchasers decision making process. What is meant by this is, if they hadn't brought your product what could they brought instead.

A brand new car for instance give the would be purchaser a great deal of alternative choices. Holiday / Luxury goods etc. So the Price / Cost has to be measured in line with the alternatives and opportunities that exist.

Promotion is Communication. If anything little as changed here, you still need to promote your product / service to your target audience. Though what is changing is how we do that and the rise of brand advocates in that communication process.

It's no longer all about push communications  but more importantly pull communications that our target  audience generate themselves through their own activities and peer communications. I have been talking about ALL MEDIA CUSTOMER ENGINEERING for over ten years. Is there true consistency of brand / core differentials / messaging etc across all your brands touch points?

If the answer is no, then that where mis-communication takes place and create confusion because you are not controlling the messages.

Finally, Product became Needs and Wants for the customer. The mentality has changed, it's no longer about 'if you build it, they will come". You have to understand what your target audience wants and desires. 



So in summary, the 4 P's are still there and form must strategic marketing but they've changed. The reason, we've changed and are continuing to change too.

Simple but effective tactics that will improve your sales

 Good ways to improve sales 

Never waste people’s time. 

We all work todeadlines and time is clearly money. So given that we’re all so overworked, overstressed, and overwhelmed, how do we manage to hold the attention of the person we are selling too?  I know what you’re going to say, how do you know until you try? Well, I think that if you dig down deep, most of the time, you know. Be concise tell them about benefits not features. So many sales people / teams fail because they never sell a benefit.

Try making sense.  to the person or company you’re targeting or pitching. And that inherently means doing two things that. First, ask yourself what’s in it for them (Selling a Benefit). Second, actually try it out in advance on the closest thing you can get to the audience or targets you’re trying to reach. Third, iterate until you get the sort of “aha” reaction that means you’ve gotten through their defences. One of the most powerful tactics I have used is "selling the dream"  Imagine, Visualise, Picture are all wonderful and powerful words that transport the buyer into that place where hay see your product / service helping them. 

Differentiate. In today's overcrowded market few of us have the budget or the brand to be heard over the crowd and above all the noise. What it means is offering an idea or solution that solves a problem better than anyone else does. How do you do that? By doing  research that will help you create brand / product differentials that can stand out from your competitors. Try and understand your target audiences requirements and importunely why your competitor's are failing to match those requirements. 

Get feedback and give accordingly. People love to feel valued and appreciated. And this basic human trait can be an effective sales tactic. Why not offer  something of value. No, not some dumb self-serving study your company funded or a cheap gadget but something of real value to your prospect or customer. Get the end user to interact with you, how do they think the product / service can improve? What would they like it to offer / do? And then reward them for that invaluable insight. 

Be Human. I don’t know why, but some salespeople think they need to pump themselves up so, when they finally get in front of someone real. Remember the truest sales statement of them all, people buy from people…

Understand that you’re just a person who’s genuinely trying to connect with others to offer them something they might really need. If you’re genuine, they’ll react in kind. But if you come off like a madman on steroids, be prepared for some ugly rejection.

What we need to understand about social media before posting.

In a recent survey of businesses, Marketingsherpa reported that the three top ranking objectives for businesses utilising social media were as follows;

1. Increase web traffic through social media integration. 
2. Improve brand awareness or reputation 
3. Developing an effective and methodical strategy for social media. 

It's the last one that strikes me as somewhat odd? 51% of those polled said that using social media was in fact aimed at developing an effective and methodical strategy for that medium. I have to ask the question if you haven't already thought through the strategy for using social media what are you doing? Are you just posting random blogs, occasionally telling people about a sale or something you hoping you may interest them?


It's that random nature that worries me! Let's say for instance, this was a direct mail or email campaign. Would you just send out random mails in the hope of attracting interest? Have we not learnt that you need to understand your audience, their needs and important how your service or product fulfils that need? 


Unfortunately, it would seem that we have not learnt from our early forays in email marketing. Send enough out and something will come back! Social media truly excites me for a number of reasons; it can engage with true brand advocates i.e. real people. It is relatively cheap and easy to do and it fits perfectly into an integrated communication mix. Simply look at the first two points of the survey, driving traffic and increasing brand awareness. 


So what do we need to do to avoid this randomised approach? I would say firstly, sit down and think through all the various touch points that your communications reach? This isn't just the 'push' communications but the 'pull' one's too. How are your customers, prospects and competitor's interacting with your communications and brand? Once you have created that communication touch point map, see how social media can benefit your business. 


For example, who are you going to follow? How does that benefit your business and importantly your customers? How does social media position your business? I feel that  one of the main benefits as to be the development of 'thought-leadership' for your business. How you can create core values for your business and differentiate those from your competitor's. 


Understand the nature of each social application, how does Twitter differ from Facebook? And how can you use them to communicate effectively with your customers and prospects. 


Then plan your strategy, how you are going to utilise social media. Integrated it with the current marketing communication mix. Remember the main benefits of social media, timely, interactive and it's viral nature. And add those into how you are going to utilise social media too. For example, a timed or special offer to followers. 


But above all, think through why social media.