Could your sales pipeline benefit from improvement? AI, Industry 4.0, and low-cost CRM platforms, all promise to make closing sales easier. However, successful implementation of new technologies still requires human ingenuity. Moreover, forgetting this could be why your marketing efforts aren’t yielding results.
5 Ways to Fine Tune Your Business Strategy to Increase Sales
To help you start closing sales more effectively, we’ve compiled a list of 5 top sales tips worthy of consideration in 2019. Each can be implemented with or without the use of a dedicated CRM system. However, having customer relationship management software at your disposal will make things easier.
1. Better Align Your Sales & Marketing Team
According to a 2017 report by Forrester Research, Inc, only 40% of surveyed marketing teams participate in the creation and review of sales pipelines. This means that businesses are investing in technologies like CRM software, without working to foster stronger relationships between sales and marketing teams themselves.
As of 2019, it is imperative that sales and marketing personnel collaborate when creating customer journeys. When this doesn’t happen, sales teams can find it challenging to start closing sales, especially when they are unfamiliar with what offers and incentives customers are responding to.
2. Consumers Don’t Like Traditional Cold Outreach Techniques
As of 2019, fewer than 24% of cold outreach emails ever get opened. Worse, fewer than 1% of cold calls lead to sales.
Why consumers dislike outbound sales techniques is simple. 68% of consumers feel confident in their ability to research products for themselves. Many people also dislike being made to feel like they need a sales rep to help them make informed decisions.
Given the above, it is imperative to fine tune whatever cold outreach techniques you plan on using in 2019.
- Focus on creating email subject lines which recipients can’t resist clicking
- Ditch tired cold call scripts, never overwhelm prospects, and never pitch a sale during first calls
- Followup cold outreach attempts with targeted promotions syndicated via SMS and social media
- Have marketing teams review business email templates
- Followup cold calls, but know when to fallback when prospects don’t convert
3. Leverage Social Media Tracking to Improve Customer Journeys
Social media marketing is evolving. 12-years ago, businesses were considered innovative by having a Facebook page. However, today it’s not enough to have a social media presence. As well as this, companies need to use tools to track consumer interactions with the content they syndicate.
Using a CRM system empowered with real and flexible automation tools, is the easiest way to track consumer interactions on social media. As a bonus, CRM platforms make marketing automation really works. Businesses can, therefore, start syndicating personalized content to specifically targeted audience members.
4. Focus on Value-Based Selling
Does your sales and marketing team focus on promoting the features of your product? Or do you focus on the value your product brings to consumers?
If you are not closing sales as often as you would like, it might be that you focus more on product features in sales pitches. However, as we’ve already established, many consumers prefer to research product features independently. A better approach is, therefore, to tell consumers how products add value and solve real problems.
5. Over Deliver When Closing Sales
Last but not least, businesses should always seek to build a rapport with customers when closing sales. One way to do this can be to over deliver.
By providing customers with free extras and discount codes post-purchase, businesses boost customer satisfaction and all-important word of mouth recommendations. Of course, how companies add value will differ from business to business. The most important thing is to build a rapport in the process, which facilitates future engagement.
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