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by Peter Berger 2 April 2009
WDX Ltd. New Zealand
Increasing sales is an important issue for business. We will cover the basics and then further accelerate sales with web-hub promotion.
So how is it done? In a nutshell, it is a matter of doing everything right. No need to be perfect, the goal is rather to be balanced.
Think of the sales process as a number of steps that are linked together. The strength of this process is equal to the weakest link. For example, a perfect product and weak promotion will still yield low sales.
Boosting sales is therefore about focusing your efforts on the weakest links of your business. This is usually just the opposite of what we want to do. We naturally like doing what we are good at. But what is required is that we focus on areas where we are not well equipped.
A sale requires that a customer trade his money for your product or service. Customers will do this only if there is a perceived need and a good value.
As a first step, verify that your products and services really meet the needs of customers. Minor changes in your offering could make them much more appealing. This means talking with customers. Also find out why people do not buy from you. Is there anything that could change their minds?
For example, if you sell nails, are you in the nail distribution business? Or are you providing fastening solutions? If you think about your customer's need for solving fastening problems, you can now provide extra solutions beyond nails. You can expand into adhesives, bolts, and other technologies. In addition, you could provide complete solutions: nail guns, supplies etc.
While not every idea will make business sense, this approach will help you focus on what really matters: solving a problem for your customer.
Assuming that your products and services are of good quality and value, the question becomes: What is the perception of your offering?
It is not good enough to make a good product. You need to take the next step and do the necessary branding and productizing that will make it look good in the customer’s mind.
This is where branding can help. You focus on helping the customer understand what this product is all about. Branding is about image and it is also a promise to your customer.
The more you know about your potential customers the better. What do they want? How do they want it? What prices do they need? How do they want to buy? How can you make contact with them?
The right price is not necessarily the lowest price. For example with fragrance, a low price could be bad. Perhaps the right price is really a deal: three payments of this amount, buy this and get that, or whatever will appeal to customers.
If your competition has lower prices and you are loosing out, then see what can be done. Can costs be reduced? Or quality? Or offering a different deal?
This is part of your branding effort, but needs to be emphasized. Have only one image, one message: company wide. Everyone in your firm will know and repeat your branding message.
For example: "We produce the best rubber seals for fishing fleets – less down time means better bottom line."
All marketing and promotional efforts plus all public contact will reinforce this one message.
Review your sales aids: data sheets, product specifications, brochures, flyers, rack cards, and literature. Are they good enough to get the job done? The right image and feel? Are they up-to-date?
It pays to periodically audit your entire sales cycle: from promotion to sales. Is it easy to buy from your firm? Sit in on sales calls and listen to sales pitches.
Sales people are on the front line and they are the ones either making or not making sales.
Keep a positive attitude in your firm. Correct problems.
Once the basics are addressed, we can move on to promotion. The problem with promotion is that it can be very expensive. Spending ten dollars to generate one dollar in additional sales is not a good deal.
In a nutshell, promotion is all about money. Say that you have a profit margin of 20%, you spend ten dollars on promotion and receive one-hundred dollars in additional sales. That transaction yielded a profit of ten dollars; ($20 profit minus $10 cost of promotion) which is a good deal.
Most businesses need to promote themselves; otherwise customers do not know and do not buy.
The question then becomes how to promote? Newspaper ads, radio, TV, magazines, flyers, trade shows, door to door, etc. The answer is that it all depends on your target market and if you are right about your assumptions.
Your target market will indicate how you contact them.
Another solution is the empirical approach: try a promotion and measure its effectiveness. In a relatively short time you will know where you get the best return on your promotion dollar.
There is one thing different about a website and all other promotional activities: the web has no limits, i.e. you can place as much information as you want into the site.
Most promotional efforts have strict limits on time and space. A radio ad is maybe 30 or 60 seconds, a newspaper ad has maybe half a page, a flyer maybe just one piece of paper.
This means that traditional promotions can at best arouse interest and call for action. They are not well suited to give detailed information.
You always want to make that sale, so your radio ad tells the public to come by your business and buy. Or call today. But not all of your potential customers may be ready to do that; at least not yet.
Web-Hub promotion gives your potential customers another option: go to the website and all of your questions will be answered.
Potential customers that are delaying their purchasing decision are now directed to your website. This gives you a second chance to sell. Your website can now try to do what your ad could not: use as much time and information as needed to persuade your customer into buying.
You can employ similar promotional techniques on the web. But now you can back them up with more information and perhaps audio, video, or animated media. This enables you to make a more powerful call for action: come by our business and make that purchase now. Or perhaps you just want to buy on-line? The choice is yours.
In fact Web-Hub promotion is all about choice; giving your potential customer more options to move forward with a sale.
Simply put, the Internet is an inexpensive business resource and a great value. A website is the ideal, low-cost, business information delivery system. In terms of promotion, you just can not do better.
This does not necessarily mean paying more for your website. With blogging software and content management systems, you or your staff can add content directly to your site without needing a web designer.
The logic is simple: back-up your promotional efforts with a solid website. Thus you are linking time and space limited promotional efforts with a store of information on your website that can be as large and detailed as you like.
Your newspaper or magazine ad now gets your customer interest and calls for action. Sell what you can and direct the others to your website so you can educate them into making a purchase.
Place a lot of product and service information on your website. Of course, it needs to be done in an organized fashion so people can find what they are looking for.
If possible, place as much information on the site as possible: information that would be helpful for customers to know but would not be a disadvantage to you in terms of your competition.
Talk with staff that has direct public contact to determine the kinds of information people are seeking. See if this can be included in the site too.
Then promote your website.
Now ensure that all promotional material has your website details. Your call for action should continue to emphasis a direct purchase or action. Just mention that for more information, please visit our site.
The web is a great business tool. You want to know how well your promotion effort is doing and your website can do just that. With codes, contests, puzzles, and more, you can get people to respond to your promotion. They enter the codes into your website and this information is then stored in your database for you to analyse and measure.
Till now, we have been discussing the use of traditional, non-web promotional techniques and the importance to tying them to your website.
But the web is also able to generate its own results through Search Engine Optimization and web marketing.
Bring balance into your product offering. Be in-tune with your customers’ needs. Help educate customers through traditional branding methods, and then consider the merits of web-hub centred promotion. The benefits of a well designed company website will far exceed the costs.
