Sales and Marketing Strategies about selling anymore

Sales and marketing is no longer about selling anymore, but about building more trust and educating your customers. When it comes to online, without a solid emplacement and a certain level of trust between two parties, it’s going to be difficult to increase sales.

In this comprehensive guide, we’re going to cover a wide range of strategies and techniques to help your Best Earning Source generate more sales. First, we will take a look at the traditional approach to sales and marketing in the industry, before introducing you to a modern and streamlined digital marketing strategy designed to educate potential customers about your services and products.

So, if you have an Entrepreneur but are struggling to increase sales, double your profits and gain a good reputation online, get ready to learn the tricks of the trade!

Table of Contents

• Traditional sales approaches for startup industries
• 9 ways to increase startup sales
• Automating processes
• Building an online presence
• Digital marketing
• Optimizing your sales pipeline
• Global expansion
• Prioritizing customer service
• Maintaining quality assurance
• Sales enablement
• Strategic pricing

Traditional Sales Practices for Entrepreneurs and Companies

Traditionally, sales were made in-person or over the phone. Entrepreneurs relied on taking part in tradeshows to make connections with prospects, and would print product catalogs and pay to have them distributed to reach remote buyers. Communication was more difficult, and the process was generally inconvenient. Selling to customers outside of your region was also particularly difficult.

To take this a step further, some entrepreneurs would also advertise on billboards, in newspapers, and on TV. Such marketing activities would require a considerable amount of money to do, not to mention the time it would take to plan, prepare, and execute effectively.

However, the way that entrepreneurs and other B2B businesses approach sales has seen a massive digital transformation over the past year. The global spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 sent the world into a frenzy. Any in-person activities had to be moved online. According to a recent McKinsey research, with COVID-19, 75% of buyers and sellers say they now prefer digital self-serve and remote human engagement over face-to-face interactions. For many B2B companies, many entrepreneurs were still conducted in-person, so they were forced to think on their toes and quickly adapt to the new circumstances.

“The B2B world has inched its way towards digitalization until it had no choice but to fully emerge.”

For many entrepreneurs, this push towards digitalization was a blessing in disguise. The online world opens doors for endless opportunities in sales and business growth. Online selling uses a variety of tools and approaches to reach potential customers both near and far. It gives you the opportunity to open your business to customers in different countries and regions. These tools also give you resources to streamline your sales process and keep your sales cycle moving at a healthy rate.

9 New Ways to Increase Sales

The key to sustaining and growing your manufacturing business comes down to increasing your sales. Fortunately, there are small tweaks you can make to your sales processes and general approaches to business that will yield great results.

Let’s take a look at 9 things that you can do to take your sales game to the next level.

1. Automating Processes

Automating tasks and processes gives you the power to allot time and resources in a way that makes more sense. Some tasks that can be automated include lead generation, marketing, email blasts, ordering, invoicing, recurring payments, and pipeline management.

By automating these things, your sales team can spend more time and resources on fostering relationships with prospects, current customers, and past customers.

This is not to imply that automation replaces genuine human interactions in the sales process. In fact, that is not what we’re saying at all! Simply use automation to streamline the steps of the process that don’t need manpower to be successful.

2. Building an Online Presence

Increasing your sales in the ever-growing digital world means building an online presence. The point of this is to make your manufacturing business discoverable so that you can generate leads.

In order to effectively generate leads, you’ll need to be intentional with how you go about this step. Simply having an online presence is not enough. The platforms you use to display your brand and products must be designed with lead generation and sales in mind.

An On-brand Website

A website of your brand or business can serve as a centralized platform that contains all relevant information about your business and products. Your website should clearly explain who you are, what you do, who you serve, and how you serve them.

Calls-to-action are very important to have on your website because they give viewers direction. Depending on your sales strategy, you can prompt viewers to contact you or you could send them to order products directly by integrating with an eCommerce system. You could also use lead magnets to collect email addresses to use for email marketing.

We recommend hiring a professional developer to build your website, so that it uses best practices to make it user-friendly, on-brand, and professional looking.

“Storefronts” on Digital Marketplaces

As we mentioned, eCommerce has been game-changing in every industry over the past year. Adding your products to a custom page or “storefront” on a B2B eCommerce platform will put your products in front of the eyes of people who need them.

Platforms like Amazon, Alibaba, ClickBank, and Etsy are built for entrepreneurs like you to list their products, showcase their product capabilities, and connect with millions of customers that are ready to buy. As a seller on an online platform, you can upload your products to a custom-built storefront that automatically translates into over a dozen different languages depending on your viewer’s location.

The products that you upload to the online storefront are automatically added to the platform’s search engine, so if a client is searching for something you have available, they will be directed to your listing where they can place an order or contact you directly. Launching an online storefront on a marketplace is also easier and more cost-efficient than hiring a developer to build a website from scratch. No coding or design skills are required.

Optimized LinkedIn Profiles

Every member of your sales team should have an optimized LinkedIn profile. This will help build connections with potential customers and give your team members the ability to build their professional networks in the online space.

Since these profiles will be representative of your product, it is important to set some standards to ensure that they are as professional as possible. Profile pictures should be professional headshots rather than cropped group photos or selfies. All of the text on the page should speak to people whose businesses fall into your target audience.

Additionally, you should set up a page for your business so that each of your employees can link to it in the “Experience” section of their profiles.

LinkedIn should be used as a tool to build genuine connections rather than simply finding contacts to cold pitch to.

Social Media Pages

Social media profiles are important for extending your reach. It is a good idea to have a profile with your business’s information on each of the major platforms, even if you’re not currently planning on going all-in with advertisements or content creation.

When we say “major platforms,” we’re referring to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. We will talk about which platforms to pour your resources into a little further along in this post, but it is important to be discoverable anywhere.

3. Digital Marketing

One major part of increasing your sales is by aligning your sales efforts with marketing. Digital marketing is becoming more and more important in the online space, and it is a great tool for taking your business to the next level.

There are several approaches to digital marketing, but which ones you employ should depend entirely on your target audience. As an entrepreneur, your target audience is other competitors, but in order to be successful with marketing, you have to get more specific than that.

If you haven’t already, it is a good idea to build an ideal buyer profile. Develop your marketing strategy to reach this persona. Not only should you analyze demographic factors such as age, gender, and geographic location, but you should also dig deeper and identify your potential customers’ problems, pain points, values, and aspirations.

For example, let’s say you own a manufacturing plant that creates products for the automotive industry. In this scenario, your target audience may include manufacturers who are looking to purchase parts in order to assemble their vehicles. However, if you further analyze your potential customers, you may realize that your ideal customers are the owners of small to mid-sized manufacturing plants that focus on electric vehicles and face common issues such as supplier shortages, quality control, or rising material costs.

Once you understand who your ideal customers are, you can develop marketing strategies that target them in a way that speaks to their needs.

Using Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is an effective way to draw prospects into your sales funnel. You can create content designed to educate potential customers about your services and products. For example, you might consider starting a blog that discusses common industry issues and how your company can help solve them.

Through this content, you can build trust and provide your prospects with enough information to encourage them to contact your company for more information or to make a purchase.

Additionally, you can use social media and email marketing as a way to reach your prospects. Use social media platforms to share valuable content that will be useful to your target audience, and include links back to your website where they can learn more.

4. Optimizing Your Sales Pipeline

Your sales pipeline is the process that you use to convert a lead into a customer. A poor sales pipeline can lead to a low close rate. If you’re trying to grow your business, this can lead to stagnation. Below are several tactics you can use to optimize your sales pipeline:

• Assess your current sales process and identify areas of improvement.
• Be sure to include specific metrics to track in your pipeline, such as how many leads convert into paying customers.
• Make adjustments as needed based on the metrics you gather.
• Train your team to use the tools and resources you have available for your pipeline effectively.
• Collect feedback from your team about what they are seeing in the field.

5. Global Expansion

In 2021, a report from McKinsey revealed that B2B businesses are increasingly leaning towards global expansion. However, this is not a new trend; it is a strategy that many companies have employed in order to increase their sales.

Entrepreneurs should not be afraid to reach out to markets outside of their region. With digital tools available to facilitate sales and marketing across international borders, the process is more convenient than ever.

Consider creating a website that is multilingual, hiring a translator to assist in communication, or working with partners in international markets to streamline the sales process.

6. Prioritizing Customer Service

In any industry, customer service is paramount. Especially in the B2B space, customers rely heavily on your ability to assist them in addressing their pain points. If you want to be a preferred vendor, you should invest in building strong relationships with your customers.

Take the time to educate your customers on how to use your products effectively, and provide them with support for any issues they encounter. Customer loyalty and retention lead to more revenue opportunities for your business.

7. Maintaining Quality Assurance

It is crucial to maintain quality assurance in every process of your business. This includes product quality, customer service, and vendor relations. Quality assurance should be a core value for your business.

Be sure to create standards for quality control and conduct regular assessments of your team to ensure they are adhering to the standards you have set.

8. Sales Enablement

Investing in sales enablement is a great way to increase your sales. Sales enablement includes tools and resources that empower your sales team to be successful.

In particular, investing in CRM software is a great way to track leads and customer interactions. This can also help you analyze data to determine how to best improve your sales pipeline.

9. Strategic Pricing

Pricing can be a challenging aspect of sales. Strategic pricing refers to the practice of adjusting your prices based on your target market and competition.

To develop an effective pricing strategy, conduct market research to better understand the current landscape in your industry. Pricing can often be a competitive advantage, so keep an eye on your competitors while developing your own approach.

Sales and marketing are two key components to any successful entrepreneur's journey. In today’s digital world, you have more opportunities than ever to attract and convert leads into customers. So, get out there and start implementing these strategies today!