Generally, I am a firm believer that when it comes to promoting and selling your services you should stick to your carefully designed process, developed over years of trial and error. ‘People buy people’ says the old cliché. Whilst true, don’t make it into a reason to stick to what you have always done at all costs.
Take me for example, my business is not particularly technological, if anything I use many old fashioned lead generation tactics such as telemarketing. Still, I think it’s important to develop your toolkit and process whatever you do and so spend time reading up. I thought that you would appreciate it if I shared some of this so here are a few of the 2017 trends concerning sales and marketing strategy which resonated with me:
- Understand your target market even better. Everywhere you look, we are told to create interactive content and specific messages. In order to do this, you have to know who you are targeting and as many details about their specific pain and goals.
- Invest in technology. By this, I don’t just mean you should spend money but also time to investigate what tools are out there and which ones will help you improve your market understanding and marketing results. Consider marketing tools such as CRM but also free measurement tools such as Google Analytics. None of which are particularly new but both take time to get your head around and use well.
- Set goals and KPIs: Another trend which is covered by many top advisors is regarding data driven marketing or in other words, do more of what works. We talked about technology which allows you to measure your activity but without setting goals this will be in vain.
- Re-visit your sales process. Increasingly prospects are interested in speaking with subject matter experts who can provide them with a tailored solution. A buyer can now spend time researching your product on your website negating the need for sales presentations. This often means that clients want to take control of the process and reject being talked into a sale. This does not mean you don’t use sales people but rather consider their product knowledge and approach.
I hope you find my interpretation useful, I would be interested to hear your ideas too if you have done some reading too. As always I would be grateful if you share this if you found it useful.
If you would like to consider any of these ideas further and want some help doing you could consider our sales and marketing plan or get in touch to discuss.