These terms denote sequences or stages intended to lead potential customers toward making a purchase. This article thoroughly explores each funnel, their primary differences, and how they can synergistically drive business success.

Understanding the Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel outlines the theoretical journey of a customer toward buying a product or service. It encapsulates stages from gaining broad audience awareness to cultivating satisfied customers. Marketers use this model to craft targeted campaigns, guiding prospects through each phase.

Stages of a Marketing Funnel

Awareness Stage

Potential customers learn about your brand, product, or services. This stage could employ online ads, search engine results, or social media engagement.

Interest Stage

Once prospects recognize your brand, they begin to show interest in your offerings, potentially subscribing to newsletters, following your social media accounts, or reading your blogs.

Consideration Stage

At this phase, potential customers compare your offerings with competitors, read reviews, compare prices, or seek recommendations.

Conversion Stage

In the final stage, the prospect decides to purchase if your marketing strategies have succeeded.

Overall, the marketing funnel and its stages can help businesses devise strategies for guiding prospects toward becoming customers.

The Sales Funnel Explained

A sales funnel visually represents the sales process, focusing on converting leads into paying customers. This funnel becomes applicable when a prospect exhibits a definite interest or intent to purchase.

Stages of a Sales Funnel

Lead Generation

Potential customers or “leads” are identified in this stage.

Qualification

Once leads are generated, they are evaluated to assess their interest, budget, or purchasing power.

Proposal

A recommendation, quote, or pitch is presented to the qualified leads at this stage.

Conversion

In the final stage, the lead purchases and becomes a customer.

The sales funnel offers a systematic approach to guide leads through the sales process, increasing the chances of conversion into customers.

Contrasting Marketing and Sales Funnels

While marketing and sales funnels aim to convert prospects into customers, they emphasize different stages of this journey. The marketing funnel focuses more on generating awareness and interest, while the sales funnel steps in once a lead is qualified, focusing on conversion.

Moreover, marketing funnels generally employ broader strategies like content marketing, SEO, and social media marketing. In contrast, sales funnels concentrate on more direct strategies like direct outreach, sales pitches, and closing strategies.

Choosing the Right Funnel for Your Business

The choice between a marketing funnel vs sales funnel depends on the nature of your business, your target audience, and your specific goals. For instance, companies with complex products or services or a long sales cycle may find more value in focusing on the marketing funnel or sales funnel, respectively.

Similarly, a broad target audience might benefit more from a marketing funnel, while a more niche, qualified audience may require a more concentrated sales funnel approach.

The Importance of Aligning the Two Funnels

A deeper understanding of the marketing and sales funnels can help streamline the customer journey, but it is equally critical to align them effectively.

This alignment ensures a seamless handoff from marketing to sales, leading to a smooth customer journey that enhances the overall customer experience and ultimately boosts conversion rates.

According to a statistic on Pipeline, sales and marketing alignment can help your company become 67% better at closing deals. On the other hand, companies with poor alignment saw revenues decline by 4%.

This illustrates the tangible impact that alignment between the marketing and sales funnels can have on a company’s bottom line. Here are some steps businesses can take to align their marketing and sales funnels effectively:

Shared Goals and Metrics

Both teams should clearly understand their shared objectives and how they will be measured. For example, they could agree on a set number of qualified leads as a common goal.

Metrics like the MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) to SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) conversion rate can help ensure both teams are accountable for their part in the customer journey.

Regular Communication

Regular meetings and updates can help keep both teams on the same page, ensuring a smooth transition from one funnel to the other. They can also foster a greater understanding of each other’s work, leading to better collaboration and improved results.

Integrated CRM Systems

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems can provide a shared platform for both teams to track and manage customer interactions. This can help maintain consistency in communication and ensure a seamless customer experience.

One way to do this is through a customer journey mapping exercise. This empowers your team to create a detailed map of the customer journey, which can help identify touchpoints and handoff points between marketing and sales. This can ensure a more integrated approach to guiding the customer through their journey.

Conclusion

Grasping the nuances of the marketing and sales funnels can significantly impact any business, leading to more effective strategies and improved outcomes. However, your business’s unique needs and circumstances should guide the decision to prioritize one or integrate both.

By harnessing the power of these funnels, businesses can better navigate the customer journey, from the initial awareness to the final sale and beyond, fostering customer loyalty and retention.

Also Read: Marketing Funnel – How To Optimize Your Business Along The Funnel

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Check Their Reputation

The first thing you need to do is make sure that the website you are selling from has a good reputation and that you can trust them. You won’t get any help or advice from people who don’t have your best interests at heart, so the site you choose must be trustworthy.
Here are some things to look out for:
• Checking their reviews – As well as checking their names, check what other customers have said about them. If they have a lot of negative reviews, then this could be a red flag, and you should avoid them. You can also find out if they’re based in your country using Google Translate before purchasing from them.
• How long has your business been around?- If they’ve been around for a few years, it’s worth looking at the website before selling anything. They might have been around for a while, but if they’ve built up a good reputation over time, this can indicate that they’re trustworthy.

Customer Service

You will have to deal with the customer service team of the website you are using, so make sure that they are reliable and have a good reputation. A good customer service team will be able to provide accurate information about the items you need and answer any questions you may have.
Another thing you should look into is how long it takes for your order to get processed and delivered to you. This is important because if there is a delay in processing your order, then it means that the items will arrive at their destination after time. If this happens, this might result in delays in delivery or even lost packages entirely.
You should also look at how fast they respond when contacted by phone or email. If they do not respond quickly enough, they do not have enough experience dealing with customers, or cannot manage their workload effectively because of a lack of training or experience.

Shipping Methods

Shipping costs are a major factor in deciding the best website to sell csgo skins for PayPal. The most important thing is to ensure you’re getting good value for money. There are three main shipping options.

• Free Shipping usually includes tracking and insurance on the package, but only sometimes. If you want this level of service, then it’s worth checking out the price before making a purchase.
• Standard shipping is often a flat rate, meaning there are no additional fees or charges for customs or duties, if applicable. This type of service is usually cheaper than free shipping, but only sometimes – you should always check to see what the cost will be before purchasing anything from abroad or outside of your country’s borders!
• Expedited shipping option offers quicker delivery times and can be very expensive depending on the size and weight of your order.

Also Read: How To Do Mailing And Three Advantages of Sending Mass Emails

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This comprehensive guide shares the top 10 sales strategies startups need to know in 2023 to double their sales in record time. The strategies are based on proven methods and best practices recommended by leading experts in sales and marketing. One of the most important strategies is the target group analysis, which makes it possible to precisely determine the needs and wishes of the target group. The correct segmentation of the target group is crucial to place the sales message in a targeted manner. To do this, companies must identify the various segments of the target group and formulate relevant sales messages based on this.

Another important aspect is the optimization of sales channels. Every company has individual sales channels that match its goals and target groups. Careful selection of distribution channels is necessary to reach customers where they are. Companies should pay attention to the different properties of the sales channels to achieve the highest possible effectiveness.
Another essential part of the top 10 sales strategies is optimizing the sales funnel. The sales funnel is an important tool to visualize the sales process and guide the prospect through the different stages. The sales funnel analysis and the optimization of the individual phases significantly contribute to increasing sales.

In addition to the target group analysis, the optimization of the sales channels and the sales funnel, other strategies are also very important. This includes, among other things, the automation of processes, the use of influencer marketing, the personalization of sales messages and increasing customer loyalty.

In addition to the top 10 sales strategies, this guide will provide readers with practical tips and best practices to make implementing the strategies easier. Readers will learn how to adapt the various strategies to their business models and how to implement them in practice successfully.

Also Read: Digital Sales – How To Attract Customers And Retain Them?

Sales Strategy: Target Group Analysis

Audience analysis is one of the most important sales strategies to increase sales. A precise analysis of the target group enables companies to tailor their sales messages to the needs and wishes of their potential customers. This section introduces the different aspects of audience analysis and explains how companies can best segment their audience and formulate appropriate sales messages.

Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation is a central part of target group analysis. The aim is to divide the target group into different segments to respond specifically to the needs and wishes of the respective group. Successful customer segmentation requires precise knowledge of customers and a thorough analysis of the market and competitive situation.

There are different approaches to segmenting the target group. One possibility is geographical segmentation, in which the target group is divided according to geographical characteristics such as country, region or city. Another possibility is demographic segmentation, in which the target group is divided according to age, gender or income.

Another option is behaviour-based segmentation, where the target group is divided according to behaviours, interests and preferences. This approach enables companies to tailor their sales messages to the needs and desires of their customers.

Create Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is a fictional person who represents a group of customers. Successful creation of buyer personas requires a thorough analysis of the target group and a precise knowledge of the needs and wishes of the customers.

Steps to create a buyer persona

Various steps are necessary to create a buyer persona. First, companies must analyze their target audience and identify the most important characteristics. They then need to use a personas template to define the key characteristics of the buyer persona.

A buyer persona should include age, gender, work experience, interests, and needs. In addition, companies should also consider information such as preferred communication channels and purchase motivations.

Buyer personas can also be created by surveying customers or analyzing customer data. Companies can gain valuable insights into their target group by analyzing customer interactions, purchase histories or demographic information.

Target Group Analysis In Practice

A successful target group analysis requires thorough preparation and precise analysis of the target group. An analysis of the target group can be carried out using various methods, such as customer surveys, market research or customer data analysis.

Selection Of Suitable Sales Channels

Companies must carefully analyze their target group and buying habits to select the appropriate sales channels. They should also consider which sales channels best suit their products or services. Businesses can choose between offline sales channels, online sales channels, and social media sales channels.

Multichannel Sales Strategies

Multichannel sales strategies describe a sales strategy in which companies use several sales channels in parallel. The various sales channels, such as online and offline, social media, or mobile, can be combined. Multichannel sales enable companies to reach their customers on different channels and to convey a consistent brand message.

Optimize And Track Sales Channels.

A successful multichannel sales strategy requires continuous monitoring and optimization of the sales channels. The sales channels must be regularly checked for their effectiveness and adjusted to ensure the success of the sales strategy. It is important to use the right key figures and to track the sales channels regularly. Using the right tools and applying best practices can help streamline sales channels and increase success.

Also Read: Five Practical Tips For Effective Sales Prospecting

Sales Strategy: Sales Funnel Optimization

Sales funnel optimization is a key part of any successful sales strategy. The sales funnel describes the path a potential customer takes from the first contact with the company to the conclusion of the purchase. Optimizing the sales funnel can help increase conversion rate and sales.

Definition of Sales-Funnels

The sales funnel is a graphical representation of the sales process, broken into several stages. The first phase is the awareness phase, in which a potential customer becomes aware of the company. In the second phase, the interest phase, the potential customer shows interest in the company’s products or services. In the third consideration phase, the potential customer checks the offered solutions and compares them with the alternatives. In the fourth phase, the decision phase, the potential customer decides and makes a purchase. After completing the purchase, the loyalty phase follows in the fifth phase, which is about retaining the customer in the long term and making him a loyal customer.

Sales Funnel Optimization in Practice

The optimization of the sales funnel, in practice, requires a precise analysis of the existing sales process and targeted measures to optimize the individual phases. It is also important to continuously test and iterate the sales funnel to check the optimization measures’ success and continuously improve the sales process.

Conclusion

In times of increasingly tough competition, companies need to develop targeted sales strategies to increase sales success in the long term. The selection of suitable sales channels and optimizing the sales funnel play a central role here. Through a targeted analysis and optimization of the sales funnel, companies can increase sales success and improve the efficiency of the sales process.

The target group analysis is the starting point of every successful sales strategy. Through targeted customer segmentation and the creation of buyer personas, companies can define their target group more precisely and address them in a targeted manner. When selecting a sales channel, it is important to tailor the various channels to the target group’s needs and to develop multichannel strategies to increase the reach and effectiveness of the sales process.

The post The Top Sales Strategies In 2023 For Founders appeared first on TechReviewsCorner.

Define A Prospecting Plan

Above all, the first step is to build a prospecting plan, namely the strategy implemented to make your campaign a success. Without it, you risk spreading yourself too thin and significantly lowering your productivity. You will therefore have to start by defining your prospect targets’ socio-demographic and behavioral characteristics and objectives. Make sure these are SMART for optimal efficiency.

For each segment, it is also necessary to set up a conversion funnel, from the first point of contact with your prospect to their acquisition and retention. Assign each phase of this funnel the tools you will need, such as a telephone script, a teaser email, a product pitch, and the performance indicators to monitor. Finally, plan an analysis phase at the end of your campaign to adjust your following actions.

Personalize Your Approach

To succeed in your prospecting and develop your client portfolio, it is essential to integrate added value into your approach. To do this, you have every interest in personalizing your commercial prospecting. Prospects indeed need to feel listened to and understood, far from the generic speeches of the salespeople of the early 2000s.

By personalizing your approach, you will provide specific solutions to the problems encountered by your prospects. In this sense, do not hesitate to research upstream to know your interlocutor better and thus adapt your speech to his specificities.

Use CRM Software

A CRM for Customer Relationship Management is a tool to improve a company’s performance in terms of commercial relations with its prospects and customers. Whether local or online, this essential tool centralizes all commercial information, from interactions with prospects to the commercial plan, including contact management, customer reviews, and sales forecasting.

The use of such a tool, therefore, offers considerable time savings. It is also a collaborative solution, constantly enriched by all employees, and sharing information is accessible and real-time. You can also program automated actions there, such as a reminder by email three days after first contact, for example.

In addition to operational monitoring, it offers many indicators for analyzing the results of a sales prospecting campaign. It is, therefore, an essential ally in business management centered on performance.

Anticipate Business Objections

Regardless of the quality of your product pitch or appointment scheduling, it’s a safe bet that your interlocutor will respond with one or more objections. To optimize your prospecting, you must be able to precisely identify the different reasons that may lead a prospect to refuse to meet you or buy your product. And, of course, it is necessary to provide a reasoned response to each of the objections.

This work is fundamental to the success of your commercial prospecting. If a positive response cannot overcome specific objections, try to divert your interlocutor’s attention by highlighting another strong point of your product or service. In any case, do not hesitate to train yourself to deal with it, through role-playing, for example.

Opt For An Omnichannel Approach

At a time when digital is increasingly important in daily life, it is strongly recommended to set up omnichannel prospecting in line with the uses and behaviors of your prospects.

One such strategy is to simultaneously use various communication channels to interact with your potential customers. However, the purchasing process for the latter must be clear and fluid, especially when moving from one channel to another. The difficulty lies in building a perfect synergy between the tools used to complement each other to offer a continuous journey to your prospects. Emailing, phoning, feeding a blog with inbound marketing content, or using social networks are all channels that can be combined endlessly!

Thanks to these five practical tips, you can improve the performance of your commercial prospecting and thus increase your turnover. A CRM is one of the essential suggestions, as its usefulness is transversal and will save you precious time during your steps.

Also Read: Digital Marketing Strategies To Get Succeed In Sales

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Good Communication Means Customer Satisfaction

The fast, simple and personalized communication’s influence on customer loyalty and acquisition should not be underestimated. Unlike the underlying product or service, communication is less of a basic customer requirement and more often a performance or excitement factor.

High Customer Satisfaction Means Economic Success

The satisfaction of the customer results from the comparison of his expectations with the performance of the company. It has a far-reaching influence on the recommendation, repeat purchase and cross-buying behavior, and the willingness to pay a higher price. But what are the expectations of customer communication? And what options do companies have to improve their communication?

“It Works Elsewhere Too – Why Can’t They Do It Yet?”

Today, people organize a large part of their private life via smartphones. Digital applications characterize the image of your home screen; everything is done with a swipe of your finger. If they are stuck in a telephone queue when communicating with a company, have to navigate through a complicated customer portal in search of information or apply for the “A38 pass” by post, this represents a breach of reality for them. It is particularly important to meet today’s expectations with today’s service.

Improving Customer Communication – Tips

Put Yourself In Your Customers’ Shoes.

What does an ordinary day in your life look like? How do they communicate, which channels do they use, how much time do they have available and when? How can you make communication with him as comfortable as possible? Use these criteria to select the ideal channel for the respective communication task.

Keep It Personal.

A not entirely new finding in marketing is that people want to be addressed personally and want to feel that their needs and past interactions are known and that a single point of contact is taking care of them. Design the communication in your company’s design and use your signature.

Keep It Simple And Intuitive.

Offer direct access and communicate clearly, understandably and concisely. Keep the structure clear and understandable. Give simple, step-by-step tasks. Long telephone queues, cumbersome customer portals or letterhead that has to be filled out can be replaced by digital services.

Keep It Fast.

The path from problem to solution should be as short as talking personally to a friend who organizes everything necessary. Multi-level processes for issues such as signatures, verifications, sending in evidence, etc., can be digitized.

Stay In Touch.

The probability that your customer will be able to take care of his request outside your business hours is relatively high. Your service should therefore be available around the clock and every day of the week – at least in such a way that the customer can “get the ball rolling”.

Think About Your Employees.

Even if the satisfaction of your customers is the highest priority, your employees are an important part of the communication process and have needs and expectations. So ask yourself: Which tools are useful, save time and help make customer communication easier and more successful.

Also Read: Why Is Social Listening Very Important For Understanding Your Customers?

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Data Analysis

The data analysis is divided into three parts. The first concerns all the data on the web, such as the frequentation of its site or its popularity on social networks. It is essential to know your statistics to see the commitment of your consumers to the brand. For physical canvassing, analyses allow you to send your sales people to qualified prospects who will be more interested in the product or service you are selling than if the canvassing was random and thoughtless. Look for quality rather than quantity.

Also, you can base yourself on the characteristics (sector, type of business) of your current customers who make the most turnover to find your future customers and better target them. Finally, remember to analyze the data of your merchant site: the state of its stocks, which products have sold the best, which products have the most margin, etc. These results will allow you to determine the appropriate business strategy to implement.

Blog And Social Networks

They have now become essential for an optimal marketing strategy. They allow you to nationalize and internationalize your clientele. To make you known outside your physical store and open up new horizons for your business.

Show your expertise on your blog and share valuable information with your customers. You will thus develop their loyalty, and why not obtain new customers through this communication channel. It is a unique marketing lever that you must use at all costs. But watch out for invasive advertising that could scare away your readers. I prefer advice to promotions. Train yourself in natural referencing (SEO) and paid to reference (SEA) to increase your site’s visibility.
Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin… use these social networks wisely to share interactive content and gain new subscribers. Your goal is to minimize the cost of acquiring your customers. Make your business accessible to as many people as possible and develop a real content strategy.

Use A CRM

CRM has several advantages. First of all, CRM software makes it possible to measure the productivity of your sales representatives based on several indicators such as customer satisfaction, the average value of sales or the ratio of deals concluded/deals lost.

With a CRM, you can also automate the management of your customers with the centralization of all the information available in a single platform. By entering the information in the customer files, you will have access to all their contact details to contact them at the appropriate time. Similarly, you can enter supplier records in your CRM to better manage your replenishments. This significant time saving allows your employees to be efficient in their work.

Manage And Train Your Team

It is estimated that in the second half of 2020, 71% of French people will buy their products online, according to data from the Observatory of Internet Uses. Therefore, it is more than necessary to train your salespeople in digital so that your company does not miss the digital turn. With the increasing digitalization of the world, the power to adapt has become a valuable skill. Coupled with a CRM adapted to your VSE or SME, you will obtain a powerful tool to organize your strategy.

Determine priorities with your team to optimize time management. Set up To-Do lists with specific and quantifiable objectives with a deadline.

Take Breaks

Too much work can affect productivity. Learn to take breaks and not give your team unachievable goals. Motivation must remain present to increase your results tenfold.

Burn-out quickly happens in a company when the working atmosphere is terrible, and the pressure is too high. In addition, you must find meaning in what you do and know how to communicate the company’s values ​​to your team. To promote a good atmosphere, you can install “relax” corners for informal discussions such as the coffee machine or table football.

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Good news, all of this is possible! This is the work of “web analytics.” Tools exist to track your users effectively. These tools make it possible to process large amounts of information on the habits of your visitors. By analyzing their data, you can convert each visitor into a better customer!

What Methods Are Used?

There are many tools and methods to analyze Internet users’ behavior.

• Eye-tracking: Analysis of Internet users’ gaze to know which elements have caught their attention the most.
• Click-tracking: Recording clicks on the pages of your site
• Mouse-tracking: Mouse tracking a video recording of visits to your site to find out how the visitor locates between the different parts of your menu, for example.

What Information Can I Get From My Customers?

The origin of your visitors:

• Link to a post in a social network (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
• Via search engines on natural results
• Via a sponsored ad after purchasing a keyword
• From an advertising mail campaign
• From an online advertisement obtained from a network or an affiliated site

Visitor behavior:

• Pages visited
• Time spent on each page

Custom goals:

You can also track your goals by signing up for your newsletter, selecting a particular option from a drop-down menu, or even visiting several pages in the same session.

Analyze And Interpret

You can get detailed reports, including infographics, to better understand your users. You will distinguish visitors converted into customers, those who are only interested in your products and who explore your site, but also visitors who have “bounced,” i.e., having consulted only one of your pages before leaving. Your site.

You will also be able to answer in detail the following questions:

• What are the most visited pages and the average duration of each visit?

• Who are the visitors who leave their details in a form?

• How many pages does a visitor view before making a purchase?

• How many buttons must users click before making a purchase?

Having this information helps to indicate the stage of the buying journey during which visitors leave your site. This makes it possible to make assumptions about the reasons for this departure. Do they give up because they don’t have enough information? Are the steps to make an online purchase too tedious? Answering these questions about the customer journey on your site will be the starting point of your online sales policy.

You can redesign the website or design a new web-marketing campaign strategy.

A website redesign must make it easier to navigate the website. The design of the pages (with their menus and drop-down parts) is uncluttered, and it is easier to make a purchase or fill out a form.

Implementing a new web-marketing campaign will modify the organic or paid natural referencing but also increase the publications on the networks and the forums that generate the most visits. You will also be able to target more precisely the Internet users in the segment that interests you.

Personalize Your Communication

The memorization of the customer journey makes it possible to personalize your site’s communication with your Internet users. After Business Consumers communication, you are switching to Business to One touch is possible. Offer your customers suggestions based on previous purchases in advertising inserts at the page’s bottom. It is also possible to notify prospects who have agreed to give their email address in the form of upcoming promotions.

Conclusion

If you are convinced, you can find out about the different analytics software available on the market. You can also seek help from an analytics agency to advise you on data analysis.

Also Read: Telecommuting – Metrics And Analytics

The post Know Your Customers Through Analytics appeared first on TechReviewsCorner.

Determine Customer Requirements

A successful sale starts with setting customer expectations. For this, it is best to avoid telephone exchanges. The conversation risks being cut short by various constraints (time, space, technique). Better to meet them. Upstream, conduct some research on the specialty of the company. The goal is to develop specific skills in the sector that interests buyers and prepare relevant answers to their questions. Gather all the data about your prospects before approaching them. The goal is to arm yourself well in the face of their possible refusals and convince them to buy.

Defining the potential expectations and gaps to be filled is an advantageous approach. Thanks to it, it becomes easier to stand out from others and determine the possibilities of producing values. Once you master these two elements, you can adapt your skills to customer requirements. Finally, learn about competitors’ advantages, i.e. you need to find out what interests prospects about them and their offers.

Offer a Flash Promotion.

Some people buy quickly when faced with a promotional offer. Thus, it would help if you offered them an advantageous proposition, but of short duration. You can, for example, tell them about a discount valid for a week. You can suggest they sign the contract before a predefined date to get freebies. If possible, the validity period of the promotion should not exceed a few days. The goal is to encourage customers to buy immediately or at least as soon as possible. It is also essential to make positive proposals.

Don’t fall for the threat of the type: “Once this deadline is exceeded, this offer becomes more expensive. You may regret your refusal. By using this tone, you are putting your sale at risk. Feeling their stress and their blockage increase, you risk being refused. Are you not good at this type of strategy? It is possible to change tactics.

Act As If The Deals Are Already Done

Keep a positive mind every time you talk to your client. Does he tell you that your product is too expensive or that he is not the decision-maker? Ask him what he would do if his budget were sufficient or if he were in the manager’s shoes. If necessary, ask him a question like: “If you had the power, would you be interested in our solution?”.”

He can give you two answers. Either he tells you he would be ready to buy, or he sticks to his position. In the first case, convince him by reasoning as if the contract has already been signed. He will surely be hesitant, but if you offer him some advantages, he may be interested in your offer. Suggest a discount or a fast delivery, for example. As soon as he starts going your way, continue the conversation as if the deal was already done. In the second case, restart the negotiations and use his requests to influence him.

React Positively To Rejection

Customers sometimes react negatively when faced with a product they do not know. They show reluctance and hesitation. However, even rejections can turn into strengths. When they express their disagreement, they inform you of their expectations.

Instead of giving up, it is better to ask them questions about the reasons for their decision. Ask them to expand on their answer, e.g., record their information in a notebook as they talk. Then you recap the most important points to clear everything up. Once this step is completed, you can more easily discuss a solution meeting their expectations. Then you can offer them an offer that suits them. Being interested in customers’ needs is a way of showing a willingness to collaborate. Sometimes, the feedback obtained helps improve the product or solution for sale.

Listen To Customers

Along the same lines, you need to listen to your customers. Avoid one-sided discussions and let them flow. You need as much information as possible to determine their true motivations. Study non-verbal cues like intonation or facial expressions. To do this, encourage them to talk and confide in you. Thus, it would help if you led the conversation, and your words must show your confidence. It is essential for clients to feel that they are dealing with a credible expert who can help them.

When you control your exchanges, you forge the perception of your interlocutor. However, do not confuse control with dominance. Sometimes you need to stop talking and allow him to describe the solutions that interest him. Thus, you can offer him a few product choices. When he has several answers, the prospect can easily accept your offer and feels free to make his own decision.

Highlight The Benefits of The Product

Does your product have advantages that may interest your customer? Highlight them to close the deal quickly. Even if they don’t fully meet their expectations, show them that this is an innovative solution that can be useful to them. Use clear arguments and positive vocabulary.

Also Read: Digital Accessibility Of Customers – This Is How You Do It Better

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Align or Determine An Optimal Gap

To set the right price, we can refer to the costs of competitors’ products.

• A company may seek to align,

• or, on the contrary, determined an optimal price difference concerning its competitors.

When should you seek to align your prices? When the price elasticity of demand is very high, it is common to seek to sell one’s products at the same price as one’s main competitors (sometimes referred to as “market price”).

In other circumstances, one can estimate the optimal distance to establish concerning competitors, depending on the product’s characteristics and position in the market.

• If, for example, the product sold is of superior quality or benefits from better notoriety/image, an additional price can be set to be requested from customers taking into account these advantages.
• If, on the other hand, a product suffers from certain handicaps compared to competitors, then a price should be set at a level slightly lower than that to compensate for these handicaps.

The Case of e-commerce: a Dynamic Pricing Strategy That Can Be Automated

It is possible for companies that sell online to automate their strategy with dynamic prices that vary according to competing prices.

To do this, all you have to do is equip yourself with software. Such tools allow you to put “rules” on your prices based on your competition, your product category, and the margin levels you wish to maintain.

Position Yourself As The Highest or Lowest Price

One approach to determining the price of its products can be to position itself as the most expensive / the least costly in its market.

Let us examine the two options in turn.

Highest Price Strategy

It is a strategy that can be used when the company wishes to:

• maintain a certain level of profits, without concession,
• increase overall profitability,
• improve the brand image by playing on the perception between price & quality

This strategy requires having a product that justifies its premium price by an innovative patent or if it provides a remarkable consumer benefit.

Lowest Price Strategy

Having a “lowest on the market” price policy can be a long-term strategy (to reinforce a marketing positioning) or a short-term strategy (guaranteeing the lowest price for a given period, such as during a chestnut tree, for example ).

The objectives pursued by a company that practices the lowest price strategy can be:

• quickly gain market share,
• to defend its market shares in the event of the arrival of new entrants,
• to expand its distribution network.

Adopt a Pricing Policy Based On Your Production Costs

A Pricing Strategy That Consists of Adding a Margin to its cost price

This pricing strategy depends on the costs that the company must assume to manufacture a given product. This involves adding a margin that is deemed reasonable to the unit cost price of the product.

A More Complex Pricing Policy Than It Seems, With Weaknesses

Despite its “simplistic” appearance, this strategy can be complex to implement. Indeed, what should be included in the cost price of a product?

For a trader, the price is simply the price at which the goods are bought before being resold. It is then enough to add a certain margin percentage or apply a multiplier coefficient.

On the other hand, if the company manufactures a product, the calculation of its cost price is more complex. Indeed, production costs are broken down into unit variable costs plus a share of fixed costs. However, the number of fixed costs allocated to each unit depends on the number of units sold, which can never be predicted very precisely.

Another limitation of this pricing strategy is that it does not consider the impact of price on sales volume. This forces the company to correctly calculate its breakeven point, i.e., the activity level for which the company balances its operations (the profits generated by sales exactly cover the costs incurred).

Skimming Price Strategy

A High Price Initially, Which Decreases Over Time

A skimming pricing policy involves launching a product by setting a high price and then gradually lowering it over the product’s life cycle.

This strategy allows the company to generate strong margins when the product is in the launch and growth phase and then extend its distribution when the market matures.

When To Use a Skimming Pricing Strategy?

The skimming pricing strategy is relevant when the product launched is different from its competitors (through innovation, for example). It is easier to justify a high price to customers in such a situation, such as distributors.

The basic assumption is that the elasticity of demand will be low at product launch since consumers will have no points of comparison. It will only be when the competition begins to copy the product that the price will start to fall gradually to continue penetrating market segments that are more sensitive to the price variable.

The Penetration Price Strategy

Sacrificing Short-Term Profitability To Gain Market Share

The opposite of the skimming pricing policy is the penetration pricing strategy. With this approach, the company attaches more importance to maximising its sales volume than maximising its short-term profitability.

When To Use a Penetration Pricing Strategy?

A penetration pricing strategy makes sense if:

• it is necessary to stimulate demand in a completely new market,
• the elasticity of sales concerning price is substantial,
• a significant increase in production makes it possible to lower the cost price of a product significantly
• the brand wishes to dissuade competitors from entering the market segment it occupies,
• by-products occupy the high-end part with a high price but a relatively low price/quality ratio.

A Pricing Policy That Targets The Psychological Price

The Concept of Price Acceptability Zone

The consumer sometimes tends to associate a low-quality image with a low price and a high-quality image with a high price. However, he is not willing to pay an exorbitant price.

Therefore, the optimum psychological price is in a range limited at the top by an income effect and the bottom by a quality impact: this is the zone of acceptability of a fee.

There is a method for determining the acceptable price (or psychological price) for the most significant number of consumers.

How Do You Determine The Psychological Price of a Product?

A survey should be carried out on a representative sample of potential customers. This survey asks two questions:

• Above what price do you consider this product to be too expensive?
• Below what price do you believe this product to be of poor quality?

The survey results show the percentage of people who consider the price acceptable, i.e., neither too expensive nor too low. This percentage is given by the difference between the cumulative curve of minimum prices and maximum prices. The optimum psychological price corresponds to the most significant difference between the two curves.

Although attractive to the marketer, this pricing strategy has two main limitations:

• Respondents’ statements are not always predictive of their actual behaviour at the time of purchase.
• The method does not take into account the influence of competitors’ prices.

The Pricing Strategy Articulated Around The Product Range

The price of a product influences its sales and those of the other products in the range.

Sometimes the pricing policy may aim to facilitate the sale of other company products.

However, the different models of a range are sometimes in competition. In this case, the price of a product has an influence not only on its sales but also on those of others.

The Call Price Strategy or The Case of Products That Require The Purchase of Ancillary Supplies

It is possible to set a meagre call price for an entry-level product (on which the margins earned will be low) to have the same customer discover and sell other more expensive models.

Another variation of this strategy applies when a product requires the purchase of ancillary supplies. This is the case, for example, of printers, which can only be used by purchasing ink cartridges. In this case, a company can promote the equipment of the product by an aggressive pricing policy and catch up on the margins achieved by the “consumables.”

Conclusion

Due to the dual influence that price has on sales volume and profitability, defining the “right price” is a significant marketing challenge. In some cases, it may be wise to start by setting a target price, then deduce the product attributes and the rest of the marketing strategy based on this variable.

Let’s not forget that other factors can also influence your pricing strategy:

• the effect of experience which, thanks to economies of scale, reduce the cost price of a product as the quantities produced by the company increase
• the price elasticity of final demand, which measures the influence of the selling price of a product on sales volumes

The post Seven Out-Of-The-Box Pricing Strategies Used By The Pros. Marketing appeared first on TechReviewsCorner.

In reality, social media is far from being a fad. Its number of users is constantly growing. Today, they are the most frequent means of interaction between people, thanks, among other things, to the capacity of mobile connections. Starting from this initial purpose, many companies soon took advantage of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay in communication with their customers and target audience.

You can also apply social selling to enhance your brand, get closer to your buyer personas, and increase sales! Below, we offer you relevant recommendations to do it efficiently.

What Is Social Selling?

Social selling is a procedure based on social networks to establish business relationships and sell goods and services. This technique takes advantage of the interactive nature of the RRSS to establish and maintain communication with current and potential clients. In this way, companies make known the knowledge and experience they have in their business area. But they also track who shows interest in the offer through their commercials.

Company salespeople went door-to-door during the past century, offering products and services not usually bought in supermarkets or stores. They were seldom welcome and had to lug around a product sample or a stack of explanatory brochures in their briefcase. In a few minutes, they had to deliver their pitch before the potential client rejected their offer and sometimes slammed the door in their faces.

With the advent of the telephone, visiting was replaced by calls supported by a phone book or list. A technique that is still valid today. Later, when we already had the Internet, we saw our email boxes invaded by offers and advertisements that we had not requested: the classic spam.

What Is The Difference Between Social Networks?

Users are in communication mode when they enter these social media and seem more willing to see what brands share. If they are interested, the feedback is immediate, and they open the opportunity to interact with the company. Indeed, the availability of visual and audiovisual content facilitates the attraction of potential customers and motivates access to links to search for more information.

From that moment, as we said, the commercials can communicate with the interested party through the same platform to follow up and finalize the sale. They can even participate in social conversation to offer solutions related to their offer to problems raised in the interactions. Thus the “cold door” from house to house, the calls hanging from the telemarketing, and the spam emails became history.

To give us an idea of ​​the scope of social networks in the field of business, some surveys provide data such as the following:

• 91% of purchase decision-makers in B2B companies are active and involved in social networks, and these channels influence 75%.
• 84% of senior executives use social media to support their purchasing decisions.

Build Relationships Through Social Selling

Social selling offers the opportunity to build relationships: the basic strategy of a successful sales professional. This technique is not satisfied with access to customer data. It is also about getting to know the prospects to the extent that interaction through social networks allows it.

As we will see later, LinkedIn transcended its initial condition as a channel for job searches and has become the professional network of reference for businesses. But not all companies should look for their clients in a network for professionals like this one. Depending on the profile of your buyer persona, you can make social sales on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or WhatsApp. Although the latter is a messaging application, it has become just another social media environment and has outstanding features for the purpose at hand.

Define Your Buyer Persona And Select The Appropriate Networks

First of all, it is essential to establish an accurate description of your buyer persona or an example of your ideal buyer. Apart from being necessary for any marketing and sales strategy, a complete profile of your client will allow you to know which social networks they interact with.

For example, if your buyer persona is a manager and business decision-maker, LinkedIn is the best option since part of their orientation is towards networking and B2B business. But it is also feasible to join specific WhatsApp groups.

In the case of a women’s clothing ecommerce, through Instagram and Pinterest, you can target women identified with different clothing styles.

Take Advantage of The Versatility of Social Selling.

A characteristic of social selling is the necessary application of two inbound marketing techniques in its processes: social media marketing and content marketing. Consequently, generating and sharing content, monitoring followers’ reactions, practicing social listening, and participating in conversations are necessary actions.

Usually, commercials used in this practice can act as community managers to follow up on the brand’s publications. Similarly, to respond to the interaction of customers and potential customers.

Share Quality Content

It is recommended that the material you post is not overtly promotional about sharing content. Regardless of your sales goals, your articles, videos, infographics, and podcasts should answer specific questions and issues from your buyer personas. Through these, you can demonstrate the knowledge and experience of your company in matters related to your business model. Otherwise, the potential client could perceive your content as invasive marketing.

On the other hand, it is essential to take care of the production of the material through impeccable writing and balanced designs, and vision care. In the case of podcasts and videos, it is essential to ensure the quality of the images, recordings, and editing.

Consider Omnichannel Marketing in Your Social Selling Strategy.

The user experience makes a difference in a market saturated with standardized products. A customer can interact with your brand through online and offline channels until completing the buyer journey with a purchase, which generates satisfaction. And therefore, the intention is to repeat the experience.

Empathy And Emotional Intelligence

And while we’re talking about engaging in conversation and practicing social listening, it’s vital to exercise empathy and emotional intelligence. Remember that you are publicly dealing with people who have very different ways of thinking and acting. In this sense, you will come across complaints, negative comments, and even malicious questions of any nature during any interaction.

Understanding the point of view of your interlocutor without necessarily agreeing is a starting point to positively interacting with him. While changing habitual emotional responses to harmful stimuli, allow your answers to be geared towards solving the follower’s problem or doubt.

The post Social Selling or How To Use Social Networks To Sell More appeared first on TechReviewsCorner.