Top Eight Marketing and Sales Strategies Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "The great thing in life is not where we stand, but what direction we are moving." No matter what business you work in, a "business as usual" mindset will insure your competitors are making more money than you are. If you don't stand out from the competition you may find yourself stood up by your customers. Now more than ever you have to focus, improve, and possibly even change what you do to attain, retain, and maintain customers. Strategy 1. Think big and audit your time. No matter the size of your business, place a mental image in your mind as if you are the largest and most successful person in your industry. How much time is consumed by routine office work someone else should be doing? Spend more time with more important tasks such as marketing strategies, improving customer relations, and implementing new strategies to expand your services. Strategy 2. Be different and stand out from the competition. Jordan Furniture sells more furniture per square foot than any other furniture store in the nation. They transformed their family-owned business into a multi-million dollar corporation by following a principle called "shoppertainment." To surprise employees and customers, Barry and Eliot Tatleman dressed up like the Lone Ranger and Tonto and rode horses in their parking lot. They built an IMax theater inside one store to entertain children while their parents shopped. When you drive around the back to pick up your furniture they provide you free hotdogs and wash your car windows. Strategy 3. Build relationships with your customers. For each month that goes by, customers lose 10% of their buying power. Create a customer database and contact them on a regular basis. Mail them a postcard, birthday card, sales flyer, newsletter etc. to keep your name, phone number, and service on their mind. Strategy 4. Collect E-Mail Addresses. Get permission from your customers to use their E-mail address. Periodically send updates and notices to your client list. As long as you have their permission and avoid overuse, E-mail can be a powerful and inexpensive marketing tool. Strategy 5. Hire top sales people. Successful businesses realize the quality of their sales staff is critical to sustaining their growth in the marketplace. A top salesperson can outsell an average one 4 to 1. Sales people must understand their strengths and have a well-defined plan to reach their potential. Many companies can provide you sales assessments to both identify top candidates and develop currently employed sales people. Strategy 6. Put a shopping cart on your website. Online sales are still growing at a dramatic pace. This is coming from people who want to save time, avoid crowded stores, convenience, and the ability to shop outside of store hours. Just consider E-Bay for example, which generates millions of dollars of sales each year. It does not cost anything to set up an account on E-Bay, and you pay a proportion based on the cost of the item you are trying to sell. If you don't want to use E-bay, consider using your own shopping cart system on your website. Strategy 7. Pay-per-click advertising. Many business owners are finding classified advertising is not an effective use of their marketing dollars. Others are finding pay-per-click advertising is an easier and cheaper way to reach a larger market. Pay-per-click will insure you receive top visibility on websites driving more customers to your door. Advertisers bid on keywords and the more popular the keyword, the more expensive each click is. Prices vary between ten cents to many dollars depending on the popularity of the word. The most popular pay-per-click advertisers are Google, Business.com, and Yahoo. Strategy 8. Use customer service commandments to create good habits. Bates Ace Hardware store located in Atlanta created "Twenty Customer Service Commandments" modeled after the Ritz-Carlton hotels outlining specific behaviors employees are to demonstrate when dealing with customers and fellow employees. For example, "Accompany a customer to the correct aisle instead of pointing to another area of the store." They print the commandments on a small card and employees carry it with them at work.
Nice thread buddy and i totally agree with your strategies.. But people nowadays looking for quick money without putting in hard work... Guess people need to change their attitude and the way they think... hahahax
... how very true. i think that's the mentality of many people these days, and a lot of which has gotten the world into such economic turmoil. people have a lot to learn from real business and wealth strategies as conveyed by people like napoleon hill, warren buffet, and other savvy individuals.
best tips ever the main problem of us is that we don't want to spend time but we want good result. research and audit is very important to start anything.
It is very important to hire top sales people especially if you are not an expert in marketing. Thanks for sharing.
I agree.But if a company just start a business,they may not have much money to hire ,just have to do by themselves .
[FONT="]Communication is the master key to open all the jammed doors. It is no way as easy as it sounds to be. Every relationship has some crucial points. Always be the first one to take initiative. Remember you are supposed to talk and share not to argue or to prove a point. [/FONT] [FONT="]One should feel connected and answerable to one’s cohort, if not then you are working at a place you don’t need to be and it would be wiser to remove your clutches from it. For more information please contact at the given address: way to improve a relationship and interpersonal relationship [/FONT]
Just to add to point 1 - I would say think big, start small. Make sure its not the other way around!!!
Totally agree with this. Thanks for sharing these tips! While everyone needs to find out how to best make them work for their own business, the general ideas behind them are great!