Are your sales going down the hill?

(Reading time: 4 min)

Have you ever opened a website and after browsing for a long time (actually not more than 2 minutes) you still can’t find the information you are looking for? You then admire yourself for the commitment and you look for a competitor.

Isn’t it shocking how those companies are saying that the market is difficult and sales are going down, meanwhile even Google can’t find where the products are sold? 

Today’s article is about online sales and I will take 5 different industries to show you how they've developed their sales funnels with 21st-century technology. As a Non - Executive Director and a Digital Business Transformation Expert I’ve worked with 20 industries and I’ve seen the best and the worst when it comes to sales.

Let’s start with TECHNOLOGY providers: The companies selling business technologies are a world BEHIND those selling consumer technology! The easiest way to spot that gap is looking at their websites. 

Those selling consumer technologies have the so-called landing page which has:

• A simple explanation of the pain (problems) and gain (benefits) around the product or service;
• The price and, if relevant, 3 to 4 payment plans;
• They often have a free trial version for 14 -30 days, which is also used to capture leads like name, email, telephone number
• Testimonials on the webpage from their happy customers;
• Lots of tutorial videos on how to use it;
• Live chatbot to solve issues 

In other words, a simple website replaces endless PowerPoint presentations and pre-sales people traveling around the country to show the product/service.

Business technology companies are behind because the majority of them are still having traditional websites with loads of text, explanations on how great their product is and who is behind the company. These websites are dead! No one has time to read them. 

If ever people go to such websites, they leave very quickly. There are so many ways to self check your traffic and optimize your website.

Have you ever heard of sales funnels? It is an automated process where you can use technology to design and build the whole sales process, then you can step out and watch the results. I'm sure you start experiencing more emails from unknown for you people inviting you to check out their product or service by giving you a link to a website or to a web-class. Let me bust a myth you may have - they are all automated - the first, second, third, fourth email. Because someone sat down and did a great design of the whole sales process.

Here are my TOP 6 TIPS valid for all industries (not just for IT) on how to create your online sales funnel: 

1. Change your website to be a landing page with all elements I mentioned above
2. If you want to sell more, give your corporate clients a FREE Proof a Concept (trial) for 3 to 5 months. 

• Make sure they start using the product/service. 
• Use your sales and pre-sales people to follow up with the client on a weekly base and get feedback on the issues they have. 
• Fix any issues as quick as possible. 
• Yes, it is worth to have people and pay salary to fix the issues of a client who are not yet paying you. Only then you can close the deal and sign the contract you want.

I truly believe the responsibility of salespeople is now shifting in this direction.

1. Design and build a sales funnel, add a Google Pixel, a Facebook pixel and different online forms to the funnel and your website to capture leads.
2. Use the captured leads from the last step to run a brand and product awareness campaign
3. Run a content marketing strategy on all places your audience is hanging around (your website, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, your stores).
4. Remember that a good story told by your customer and published on all social media channels is better than a 1:1 meeting with a potential client.

Here are 4 KEY specifics for Retail and Services industries, Financial sector and NGOs that can inspire ANY business regardless of the market. 

RETAIL companies (fashion, tech, production ) that are selling physical stock always have to choose between selling in stores and selling online via e-com platforms like Shopify, Amazon, Alibaba, Magento, Instagram and so on.

The trend for 2020 for retailers is to turn the mass of their store portfolio into experiential showrooms

to run marketing campaigns, product awareness, and data capture. Meanwhile, e-com platforms will be used to do sales. Executives constantly have to make a decision between selling online or selling in stores. When sales are done via e-com, the postage and warehouse costs go up but the cost of stores goes down (or it's zero); vice versa if sales are done in stores there is no postage cost, warehouse cost goes down but stores cost goes up. This industry is one of the most advanced in online sales compared to other industries.

SERVICES (consultancy, hotels, flights, transport, traveling, energy, engineering, healthcare, leisure) is the industry with a great mixture between well advanced online sales and old-style websites. Hotels and people carriers are already having the one-click sales rule - people enter the destination/location, dates, number of people, one-click gives them all options on the screen and each option has a one-click button to buy on a visible place. 

Consultancy and property businesses are slowly moving to landing pages with quick reading and a button to book an appointment, which is embedded with the calendar of a person or a company one.

FINANCIAL sector: 

Banks moved to apps 8-9 years ago but the new trend here is to start selling via apps, using AI technology. They can track last location, last purchases, subscriptions and so on and offer a service or a product based on those analytics. For example, they can offer a gym to the people traveling to another country or flowers when its time for mum’s birthday. I believe pension funds, investments, and insurance companies will start using such apps too.

NGO and Charities is another sector which operates very successfully when using quick landing pages. They don't need to mention more than the vision and mission, how money is spent so far, the stories of their volunteers and customers. These websites must be like a business card with a donation button on visible places. It can be combined with social media platforms with direct donations from the posts (either picture or video) plus loads of leads capturing by posting educational information.

To sum it up: Websites with online sales must have a 1-Click rule to buy the product/book the service, and 1-Click rule to find information about contact and location. Only this way you will have results and start increasing your sales. 

Watch the full video on this weekly topic on my LinkedIn wall: https://bit.ly/2WqXMMT

?? The Future of Online Sales is part eleven of the series “The future of”. Tune in for the next week’s topic: The Black Friday future

???? If this topic sparked an interest in you, click the Like button, so I can recognize the like-minded people around me.

Thank you lots,

Bilyana