MANAGE 10 X SALES WITH THESE MARKETING TIPS

You are an enthusiastic entrepreneur. You have an idea and some clues on how to monetize it! You have found solutions to your problems so far! You have created a proof of concept! Congratulations! The next part is the hardest: selling the idea to customers and earning revenue.

As compared to about 10 years back, the business environment has changed drastically. Online marketing was 8% in 2012. In 2021, online sales account for 20%. [Click here]. And it is growing, in volume and value, spreading to more locations, and escalating technological sophistication.

Reach customers online, we need a landing page. It is the page, where the customers (often called leads) land, while clicking on the social media advertisement. We need an interesting proposition, an attractive price, a trustworthy payment process, and a reliable content delivery platform. Often, we will keep a few clues for the customers to evaluate and decide. This is how we come to the next stage - the sales funnel.

AIDA or AIDAR model is the simplest process of a sales funnel design.

The sales funnel is the continuous conversation funnel. Like every funnel, on the top, there are inputs, they are the curious visitors who look for a product or service and arrive at our site. Once she lands on our website, we need to explain to her the product, and services that we offer. We also provide expertise, for the visitor to evaluate, and stay on the site. This is the AWARENESS Phase.

Who is the ideal customer? What is the “Ideal Customer Profile- ICP”? Can the customer provide a recurring business for a mutually profitable association? For nurturing each customer, you may have to call or mail or track or travel- each of such processes incurs an individual cost- small or big. The average of all such costs is the customer acquisition cost (CAC)”. Hence lead nurturing with a smart ICP strategy is often a winning formula. Such an approach provides a higher Lifetime value to the customer (LTV) as compared to CAC.

INTEREST is the second stage of the lead conversion process. This is when the potential customer will set the tone, going forward. We should respond to the customer, as soon as the contact is initiated [speed to lead]. A trust factor is essential at this stage. Having sustained content creation and a balanced social media presence can create an impact. A pattern of consistent behaviour is essential. You may use workflow automation to achieve the KPI.

You might decide to classify the customers based on demographic, firmographic, industry type, consumer type, and other factors. This creates more opportunities for users to target using personas. There is also another terminology used here. A market-qualified lead is on the top of a funnel. They are the ideal leads. A sales-qualified lead is the one who needs a salesperson to cater to them. These leads have progressed in the nurturing process. Traditionally a sales-qualified lead passes through one round of sales discussion (discovery call). At this stage, the salesperson tries to understand the evaluate customer needs, and the decision-making process. It is always better to preserve this information for later. Customers do ask for data, and case studies to understand the product offering.

The next stage is the DESIRE stage. In this stage, there is a product Demonstration often involving a more senior person, along with commercial discussion, and negotiation. People do business with companies whom they know and like. The purpose of this stage is to convert the like into a want. The missing element of the puzzle is Trust.

Explain the customer using customer stories, personas, success cases, YouTube videos, free trials, past customer ratings, and more. Often pricing creates a significant impact here. Innovative pricing strategies can convince the customer, along with, innovative before and after landscaping.

ACTION is the last stage. In this stage, a lead becomes a customer. That means triumphing through a commercial negotiation and signing a contract or purchase order - followed by consumer onboarding. Retaining a customer is important in the journey. Which improves the lifetime value of the customer. RETENTION - often companies consider this as a separate stage- post onboarding. Often operations team manages the process.

However, there are other stages-

1. CHURN is an undesirable outcome for the company. From every stage, there can be a churn. However, a customer who has churned once may decide to come back later based on the circumstances, and product offering. We need to create a separate strategy for the such category - newsletter, customer stories, at an interval, which can convince the customer about the utility of the product or services. Does our software track the abandoned Kart? We can automate this stage using workflows.
2. DEALS are a particular stage of the lead nurturing process. This is when a particular product and price are finalized with the lead. Often deals are categorized differently like hot deals, cold deals, or expired deals. Leadership’s time and focus on this stage is the key.
3. CRM Packages are the sales packages [customer relationship management packages] available for managing these processes from end to end. Certain enterprise packages provide invoicing, payment, cold calling, and finance management options, while others might be for only for sales. Salesforce, Pipedrive, HubSpot, Zoho, FreshWorks, Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and SAP CRM, are some popular CRM packages. Then there is marketing automation like?Marketo, wishpond. Besides customer lifecycle management, and deal management, CRM provides channel integration options for email marketing, meeting organizer, notes and tracking, WhatsApp marketing, SMS marketing, analytics and integration, and mail management, among others-you, might consider the link here for more Best CRM packages 2022. Many of these companies have start-up-friendly pricing plans.
4. E-Commerce platforms- We also have options of setting up e-commerce websites using packages like Shopify, big-commerce, WIX or WooCommerce. Often there are derivates with content marketing available with these packages and we can integrate the mobile and tablet app integration, in one go. We can also integrate customer experience, market research, Search engine optimization, social media marketing, and payment links.
5. Lead Scoring- This is a numerical process to automatically score leach leads to find how interested, or how fit are they for the products that we offer. Valuable attributes are assigned with points.
6. Policies- Often social media and landing pages require the provision of relevant policies and sitemaps for better website presentation and ranking.

DRAWBACKS OF THE AIDA MODEL

This is a straightforward process of lead generation and conversion. However, this process can be too simple, too linear, and too orderly for many. As in real life, there are always variations. Often customers may come from any stage and can move faster or slower based on their needs and information. It is easier to start with a simple model and keep on tweaking the model to suit individual business needs.

Lead generation is a separate stage. This process is as important as lead nurturing. The lead data is temporary since the customer change contact numbers, and email id is, leave the job, and new people join. Hence, lead generation is a continuous process for a meaningful conversion process, as is lead nurturing.

Happy to share your lead generation experience? Are you getting ten times, against your plan? Are your sales funnel set yet?

What do you feel?