 Not Enough Sales Being Made?
Marketing is the New Sales
By Martin Wales, The Customer Catcher™
Your sales are down, fresh leads are rare and your list is not growing. The phone’s not ringing. Time to pump up your marketing!
You need to step up and take responsibility for your own fate. It’s amazing how often people play the victim here. They blame the market, their customers, the marketing department, their business tools or software, or an individual, for their lack of sales.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side. Often, in a typical, let’s say “traditional” organization, there is disconnection between marketing and the sales organization. There is a lack of communication, team work and common goals. Even for an independent professional or entrepreneur, there’s a disconnect between their sales efforts and their marketing activity.
For example, many fail to make another offer, to upsell, or have an additional backend, higher-priced offering for customers. It’s an inefficient and ineffective process that wastes the effort you’ve invested just to attract and convert prospects. I call it “one and done.”
Often, the larger the company, the less marketing serves an individual. In corporations, it seems the norm for marketing is to concentrate on selling “the brand” and not products and services. If you’re small, don’t fall into this trap.
Corporate marketing sells ‘the logo’ to trigger trust and positive emotions when people see it. Not all, but most, traditional marketing leans on advertising which fails to work directly for you in attracting new prospects and leads to actually buy something!
In small to medium-sized companies, there is usually a very small marketing team or a single very, over-worked marketeer. Worst, as a business owner or independent professional, you don’t have a budget and you do everything! Again, marketing is absent or not good enough to generate enough new opportunities.
The most important and singular point I’m making is that you must recognize and deal with “what is,” to improve your situation.
When I turned 40 years old a friend said to me, “Don’t worry, 40 is the new 30.” If you want to improve sales and your commission, guess what? “Marketing is the new Sales!”
Understand YOU are your own marketing department. Accept it and take action. You write your own sales letters and keep your own schedule. Tie all your marketing to sales RESULTS. Track your conversions all the way through to successful sales. Be mindful of what each sale costs you to get.
Today, you need to work on your own email campaigns, public awareness, lead generation and sales support materials and communications. With tighter budgets, less staff and more responsibility, it is up to you.
Marketing is continual communication to influence someone to take an action. Do it through various means and on a mass scale, via the Internet, print and media advertising and public relations. Stay in touch with your existing customer base. Use autoresponders and broadcasting to keep them informed and educated about you, your company and other client success stories too!
Learn or improve your copy writing skills or hire a pro. The best copy can sell anything without any personal contact. This saves you time, energy and frustration while allowing you to put your sales on 7/24 autopilot. Test and track your copy using AdTrackers and split testing. Many ‘know about it’ and do not use it. Shame.
Sole proprietors, coaches and consultants market effectively through personal contact and working in the field. You can source new deals and increase lead generation within your existing sales process without as much pain or work as you think. The best online deals are made offline. Eye-to-eye contact and a trusted handshake encourage and speed up profitable Joint Ventures.
If you don’t accept that you have to take action yourself and keep working to attract new leads and prospects, you’re going to continue to fail to reach your sales objectives. The good news is that the technology and tools available today are powerful, affordable and effective for addressing this challenge.
Drive your sales skyward. Take advantage of every single feature and capability of your automated, marketing programs, especially online. You’ll see the sales you want and own your own marketing machine. Why not go for bigger, better and more immediate results?!
Make marketing your best sales person instead of you. Let automated responses and consultation educate your prospects to the close. Remember, “Marketing is the New Sales.”
Get more free help and advice at www.CustomerCatcher.com. Martin Wales helps you “get customers until you beg him to stop!” Martin’s a marketing specialist who’s dedicated to low-cost and no-cost strategies that he shares in his roles as an author, columnist and radio and TV personality.
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