Increase sales, gain knowledge and fine tune promotions through cost efficient and effective marketing tools
Understanding what your clientsboth past, present and futurewant, need and hope for can help you build your business. You can access this knowledge using several tools and techniques, including online metrics, sales reports and personal interaction. You might be surprised what you discover.
I found this African proverb not long ago: Knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested. It serves as a reminder about the importance of challenging ourselves to continually seek to understand whats going on around us and in the world at large.
For those of us who run small businesses, it can be especially hard to spend the time to look outward given our limited time and financial resources. But just by leveraging a few tools and techniques, gaining knowledge and applying it immediately to your business can be easy and cost effective. If you have a staff, key partners or suppliers, include them in this exercise. Leveraging diverse perspectives are key ingredients to your success (and to your clients).
The Three Marketing Steps to Increase Sales
1. Analyze your own information:
No doubt, you spend considerable resources keeping your website and social media updated and active. Now leverage as much information as you can from these investments to update your sales messages and to uncover new business opportunities.
- You might be surprised what you learn about new pain points from your customers comments on your Facebook page (Page Insights). You can then seek to find ways to solve this for them.
- You might be able to expand your sales reach exponentially by seeing where inquiries and sales are coming from (Google Analytics: www.google.com/analytics) and re-tuning your promotional program.
- You may be able to identify competitive threats before its too late. Setting up Google Alerts can keep you up to date on the latest moves by your competitors and your clients.
- Your own sales reports are a critical input. Review who bought from you last year and who didnt buy from you. Was your average sale significantly different from your expectation? Did your customers respond to your marketing efforts in an unexpected way? The key is to look at any differences from years past or your expectations and ask yourself, Why is it like that and what can I modify?
2. Conduct a health check meeting with your top customers.
Your clients continually change; they may have new management or are looking into new directions. You want to be sure you know whats going on with them and then how you can help. So set up an hour with each of them this month and start a conversation with questions like these:
- Topic 1: Did we meet your expectations from us in 2013? What did we do well? Where did we let you down?
- Topic 2: What are your top business priorities for 2014? What keeps you up at night? Are you looking to expand into new markets?
- Topic 3: Here is our strategy for 2014
- Topic 4: Lets set up joint goals for 2014
Tip: You can do a health check with past clients too. They may not be happy with their current suppliers or they are shifting strategies. So add them to your schedule.
3. Send out a survey or hold a roundtable among your existing customers or potential clients.
Using a simple tool like Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) or hosting a lunch can get you a fresh perspective on how you can serve your market better. People like to be asked their opinion (be prepared to hear suggestions you may not be able to fulfill right now), and their feedback gives you a necessary roadmap for where you need to take your business next.
Remaining Relevant
As small business owners, we are used to selling our products and services constantly. Its hard to stop and listen and learn. But an investment today in gaining knowledge about your customers will pay off big by ensuring youre relevant to them into the future.
Another article by Miriam Vializ-Briggs: