Time to read 6
minutes. Getting the constant flow of customers
your business inevitably needs can be hard, stressful and expensive. Even
worse, many people seem to be confused or overwhelmed on how to start.
Surprisingly
though, generating a constant flow of stress-free, automated sales online and
growing your business further is much simpler than most people think. You can
start getting valuable sales results online and it is a matter of using some
different approaches (to what most businesses usually do) and focusing on some
simple things. So here goes.
Step 1 - Identify who your clients are and what they
REALLY want
Let's be brutally
honest: people do not care about what you have to offer or how smart you are,
they care about what they need/ want at this point in their life. No matter
what you are selling, it is either a solution to a problem or an opportunity for
people to (eventually, in one way or another) feel better. Therefore, the
quickest, surest way to generate sales is to be absolutely clear about whose
itches you are scratching and prove to them as clearly as possible that your
product/service is the answer to their questions.
By providing
your target audience with solutions to their problems, questions to their
answers or an opportunity to get what they desire, they will see the value in
your product/service (and in YOU) and you will start building trust and
confidence which will eventually lead to sales. But in order to hit your target
you first have to know where it is, otherwise you will be shooting in the dark
and waste valuable time and money. In being absolutely clear about who your audience is and what really matters
to them (which you can do by asking yourself/your team the right questions) you
can relate directly to their pains and desires and create value when it
matters, starting your process of turning new people into clients. Use this simple worksheet to help you understand how you help your clients! Click here to download.
EXAMPLE FROM EXPERIENCE
When I was buying a washing machine, one of my biggest
priorities was to get one which is as efficient in its energy consumption as
possible. I knew I had to look out for the energy ratings but did not really
know what they were, what they meant, which was the best and whether I needed
it and how much extra I will be paying. So guess what, I went onto Google and
starting looking for information on energy ratings (not washing machines).
After a tiresome and lengthy search, I found some useful information on the
site of a local retailer, which provided answers to my questions. From there I
ended up seeing their range and eventually visiting their showroom because I
liked what I saw online. True, I eventually bought from them because they had
the right product and price, but without that initial page on energy ratings I
would probably not even have known about them to begin with.
To make sure
this process is spot-on you can use this super-simple 3-step guide.
Step 2 - Find out where your clients are online and
how they look for what they want
The truth is
that your potential clients are online
right now looking for what you have to offer! Once you know who they are
and what they want, you have to discover where and when to find them online so
that you can get their attention with the solution you have to offer. If you do
not know where to find your audience you will very easily end up spending a lot
of your resources on advertising your ice to Eskimos.
EXAMPLE FROM EXPERIENCE
Before I gained some experience in using social media
effectively, I created a campaign to promote my own business-to-business
services. I created a Facebook campaign and invested money in paid advertising.
I did get results but they had cost me a lot of money which, considering the
big picture, left much less room for a decent profit. After some more thinking,
I re-invested my resources on LinkedIn, a networking website used mostly for
professional networking (professionals and business owners making up the vast
portion of its members). This created a far better result, mainly because it
has a bigger concentration of the people I want to reach (business owners
looking for opportunities) at the time they care about my message (they are
looking for a solution/opportunity not chatting to their friends and liking
funny pictures).
You can do this
yourself as best you can or get a free consultation with a professional to get maximum results.
Step 3 - Get people to take an action you want them to
take once they are interested
Providing
solutions to people who need it can be useless, unless you prompt people to
take an action. This is because even though it is great to give value to your
audience, it is also very important for your business to use that value and
create an interested sales lead. This is done by interesting your audience
enough to make them want to take the next step (which will in itself make them
a business).
Therefore, after
creating interest in the people you are targeting with your marketing, it is
time to get them to take an action on that interest by providing a simple, easy
and timely call to action. This will allow you to make that jump from speaking
to people who have (as at this moment) no particular value to your business to
creating a sales-lead (a person who is potentially interested in buying from
you).
EXAMPLE FROM EXPERIENCE
Some weeks ago I was looking for a solution online for
my own business. I stumbled upon a blog article that was so valuably
informative that it immediately started to clear up my problem and provided me
with some instant solutions. I was completely interested and believed in this
solution. Within the same blog, was a lead capturing form offering further FREE
information on the subject for those wanting to delve deeper. I submitted my
details and got my prize. In this way, I became a lead for the business owning
this blog because a) I myself confirmed that I am interested in their solution
and b) I gave them permission to send me more information occasionally. One
week later I purchased a product from them.
This takes you
right to…
Step 4 – Create a cycle which turns interested people
into clients
Any successful
sales person will tell you that one of the most important aspects of selling is
follow-up (maintaining contact with an interested person). People who buy
immediately are those who happen to be, with regards to timing, in a very
urgent need of that product/service (or really impulsive) but these are a very
small percentage. If you only make these quick sales, you will end up
‘cherry-picking’ – making the quickly available sales only and losing out on
the vast portion of potential sales.
Statistics show
that the large majority of people do not buy a product/service the first time
they come into contact with it but after the second, third, fourth, fifth…many
times even after up to 12 contacts from the supplier. This does not mean that
you keep bugging people telling them "PLEASE BUY MY PRODUCT! PLEASE BUY MY
PRODUCT!". The key is to maintain contact with your leads by providing
valuable material that they really need at the time in their life when they are
buying what you are selling. This will actually help them make a good informed
decision, generate trust in your business and confidence that in working with
you they will reach their goal and get what they are after.
EXAMPLE FROM EXPERIENCE
Apart from using a similar system ourselves and seeing
huge benefit from it, most companies we come across who are highly successful
in their sales use some sort of follow-up system.
The best way to
get this done would be to get a good Customer Relationship Management software
such as HubSpot.
Step 5 – Monitor your efforts and fine-tune them to
increase success
Getting from
where you are to your goal usually involves seeing what you are doing wrong,
treating it as feedback and taking well-informed corrective actions to
fine-tune your course. An internet strategy is no different. Periodically, one
has to keep an eye on the key aspects of his marketing strategy so that
decisions and changes can be made in order to improve results. Again, you can
either invest some time to learn and do this yourself using Google Analytics
or you can do this the fast way and talk to a professional.
EXAMPLE FROM EXPERIENCE
In a recent campaign we have done for one of our
clients, after monitoring the results we were getting, it became evident that
the material that was originally a favorite turned out to be generating the
least amount of response from people whereas the content that was least
expected to intrigue people was generating a surprisingly high degree of
action. We therefore dedicated the resources of the former on the latter and as
a resulted boosted the results of the campaign using the same budget. Truly one
of the beauties of marketing online!
If you have any
questions or want more details feel free to ask directly or leave your
comments below
