Whether you’re planning your business’ sales strategy for the first time or re-developing it as your business grows and expands, making sure that your sales strategy is right for your business is vital when it comes to achieving your sales targets.
Managing director of Pace Digital Sales,, Kevin Kelly, has shared 10 parts of a sales strategy that you might be missing.
1. Your Social Strategy
How will you put your products in front of your target market on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? You might want to think about how you can turn that into a powerful marketing tool instead of just an afterthought.
While using social media comes naturally to some businesses (for example: retailers), it might be a little bit more tricky for others.
Facebook Ads are a great way to reach your own, individual target audience, while Instagram Ads are great for visual selling.
Using Twitter can be a bit harder, but by creating content and interacting with others, your brand and product will find the right people to contribute to your leads.
2. Your Competitor’s Strengths And Weaknesses
If your competitors are achieving, it’s a good idea to find out exactly what they’re doing to give you some insight into areas that you might be lacking in.
It’s likely that what works for your competitors could also work for you, so it’s worth doing some research and making some alterations to your sales strategy if you’re not performing as well.
3. Understanding Of Audience Influence
How do people find out about new products in your industry? What is influencing them at this precise moment in time? To know this, you need an understanding of exactly who is talking about or recommending specific things, how many of them there are and what their reach is.
Finding out who you can work with to help your business and what they might want in return, how you can find influencers and what sort of things they say about your product, is a good way to start this.
4. Your Own Goals
It’s not just about selling products; it’s also about having something bigger that you’re working towards (such as an increase of sales leads or a bigger place within your industry).
This could mean thinking about how your sales strategy aligns with other business goals, such as growth strategy and 5-year plans. If you don’t have goals already in place, we suggest talking to your accountant or finance department in order to get them set in motion.
5. Your Current Content Marketing Strategy
What are you saying to your target market? Where is this information being shared, and how can it be turned into something that truly sells to them? Content marketing has become a powerful tool in business, so make sure to take advantage of it as much as possible.
6. Different Channels For Reaching Customers
Don’t just stick with one channel; try using different ones alongside each other (such as email and social media). This way you’ll get better results by knowing what works well for your customer base, rather than just choosing on which channel they prefer to interact most often.
If some channels work better than others, you might want to consider whether there’s an opportunity within those or whether they’re worth investing more into if it means that you can get greater results.
7. Future Trends
What’s hot now (and what might be soon) could help to give you an idea of which direction your business should head in order to keep up with industry standards and stay ahead of the game.
A good way to do this is by having a look at some statistics; things like which keywords are generating the most traffic, how many leads certain products are getting, etc., may all give you an indication of where you need to take your business next.
8. Your Pricing Strategy
You may think that price isn’t important when it comes to selling products or services, but this is definitely not true! If customers can’t afford your products or services, how do they plan to purchase them?
Setting prices for certain products may seem simple, but you might find that there are better ways to sell them which could help increase their popularity.
For example, selling accessories with higher priced items can make customers think that the more expensive product is worth it if it comes in a pack with something cheaper – regardless of whether this is true or not.
9. Your Sales Team’s Strategy
Remember that your employees are also part of your company’s brand! They’re some of the first people who come into contact with customers and prospects on a daily basis, so they need to know exactly what kind of impression they should be giving off.
This means making sure all staff members know their role and what they should be doing when speaking with customers.
10. Your Current Budget
How much money do you currently have to spend on your sales strategy? Is it enough for all of the above to take place, or are there things that will need to wait until you’ve had more time, space or funding?
It’s important to make sure everything is budgeted for as soon as possible in order to get better results sooner rather than later.
