As we all know, Sales is what drives our business. Without sales, whether it’s of your company’s products or service, growth is difficult. In order to increase your sales, you need to invest in marketing. Marketing is an absolute necessity in order to drive your sales results. Marketing is about identifying your customers and their needs, whereas sales is the act of persuading those customers that your company’s products or services will provide the benefits that they need. This means that marketing and sales go hand in hand when it comes to the survival and expansion of your business.
Marketing starts with an investment in research as your organization needs to figure out who its target audience is. Once the target audience is established, figuring out their needs is the next step. A strategy also needs to be put into place in order to develop a long-term relationship with these consumers and to figure out how your products or services can meet their needs. Without intelligence it is difficult to make cost effective decisions. That intelligence can be gathered internally with your existing client base as well as external opportunities.
Marketing Strategies
- The marketing of your business should have a long-term outlook for your business. Analysis of the market doesn’t just happen overnight. The market is consistently changing, buying habits change. It is important for you to study the products and services that your competitors are offering, understand what they do well and identify area’s that make you different, not better, different.
- Marketing must focus on developing a relationship with potential customers. It is imperative that you foster these relationships through a variety of different communication methods. This allows you to get direct feedback on your product and services from customers themselves, thereby helping identify current and present needs.
- Direct communication allows you to create brand loyalty. It allows you address any questions or concerns, all in which is imperative to developing your customer base.
- By establishing your target audience as well as their needs, you will be able to develop a strong identity for your brand to give yourself an opportunity to attract more customers.
Sales Strategies
Sales, generally, has a much shorter-term mandate. The products and services have already been created with the customers’ needs in mind and it is now time to persuade those customers that your products and services will fill their needs. When marketing is focused on creating brand awareness and brand consideration, sales is about meeting the needs of customers and generating a decision to prefer your brand over competitors and making the ultimate buying decision. What makes you different. What separates you from the pack.
Although different strategies and tactics are involved in marketing vs sales, they do not work without one another. Marketing sets a long-term strategy for your company that helps develop the brand. Marketing helps to establish the following:
- Brand identity
- Brand awareness
- Brand consideration
- Customer loyalty
This is done via a number of different strategies, from creating an online presence through your website to social media outlets, e-mail marketing campaigns, newsletters, blogs to developing and testing the value of different types of content to your existing clients and new opportunities. The content for an existing client could be very different than the content to attract a new customer. This hasn’t even touched on the analytics that is key to making current and future decisions. Without it, it is like shooting a dart blindfolded and hoping it it’s the mark.
Marketing is something that never stops-the needs of your consumers change and it is imperative that you keep up with their changing needs in order to continue to be successful. This is the exact reason that marketing is important to current and future sales opportunities. It is difficult to convince your potential client that your products or services will fill their needs if you do not understand who your audience is or what their needs might be. While at a tactical level, your sales drive your business results and it directly impacts your profits, the effectiveness of your sales is dependent on the marketing strategies you develop. The best combination of the two will help give your organization the best chances for success.