Finding new customers can be almost intoxicating, especially if you land sales after a few short attempts. As with any work, each success you experience motivates you to continue, to press forward. On the other hand, if you don’t have the right resources (i.e. human capital, marketing automation software), finding new customers could prove frustrating.
To improve your sales, you’re going to have to develop a good marketing plan. The easier the plan is to implement, the better. As Entrepreneur shares if you’re serious about growing your business, “It’s time to ditch your old “catch as catch can” marketing approach and put together a plan that you can manage along with the daily operations of your business.”
You have to break out of the habit of focusing on marketing only when sales are slow and make implementing as well as measuring the results of your company’s marketing plan a regular part of your company’s day-to-day activities. The benefits of this ongoing effort could be significant. After all, “a well-planned marketing program helps you build sales year-round and is easier to manage because it removes the stress and anxiety of having to play catch-up every few months to jump-start sales,” according to Entrepreneur.
Writing down your sales goals (i.e. sell 15,000 new smartphones by the end of the first quarter of 2014), creating a profile of your target audience, mapping out the strategies your company will use to achieve its sales goals and creating a marketing budget are steps you could take to increase your sales. A part of your marketing strategies could include using marketing automation software for the first time. Get the best marketing automation software from Salesfusion to grow your sales without having to pay for two or more different marketing services from different vendors.
Furthermore, if your company is currently using marketing automation software, to increase sales, you might have to ditch your current software system and install a more robust marketing automation software system. When choosing marketing software, it’s customer beware. Standalone marketing software will end up costing you hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars.
This costs/return balance could end up chewing into your profits, even if your company does increase its sales during the year. Furthermore, a robust marketing software system should allow you to conduct email and social media marketing activities, including publishing content on three or more major social media sites and emailing customers brochures, newsletters and online catalogs.
Event management and website tracking tools should also be built into the systems. If you do use website tracking tools, you may want to continue using Google analytics unless the tracking tools that come with the marketing software automatically lets you preview how your company is performing during Google searches. This includes organic and pay per click searches.
Although entrepreneurs don’t always share this information publicly, to increase sales, it’s worth it to network with other business owners, including business owners who operate companies in the same industry you do. You can learn about new marketing strategies and tactics while networking with these leaders. Just be open to sharing tips you’ve learned firsthand with the leaders you network with.
Sources:
http://www.salesfusion.com/marketing-automation-software/
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/165872