Lost at C , 5 P’s of Marketing now 5 C’s of Content

Content is king, to attract the right customers. Customers are People not numbers(from the old Yellow Pages, Golden Pages )

The days of breaking down doors, pounding the pavements and cold calling are thankfully gone. Just caused a lot of #stress on the #salesperson and the #Customer. Often this machine gun approached to #selling just chased away the Customer.

With Customers more up to date, well informed, looking at peer reviews and doing extensive research before they buy the modern sales person has to be a lot more strategic with their #sales and #marketing

Trust was always a key factor in selling so how does the modern sales person build trust ? People believe peer reviews in preference to adverts. But the advertising industry is catching up with Clever, Creative Content and video for mobile etc

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/lovable-video-marketing-campaigns#sm.00001dexxregqse9ju9vpwvtcd058

Then there’s the classic John Cleese parrot sketch with good olde fashioned Customer service / sales at its best / worst  :

 

 

Sales tip : don’t P on yr Customers

Trust is key to selling in a digital age

Digital selling retains many of the elements of face-to-face sales

Treasure your customers

Relate to their needs

Understand their needs and different buyer personas

Satisfy their needs with helpful solutions

Try to help them solve the problems they face

Sales Tip : Are you too focused on self promotion?

Finding the right customers can be like finding a needle in a haystack. With all the sales channels  available it can be hard to know how to focus your sales strategy. Self promotion on social networks such as tweeting your great offers doesn’t work. You need to add value, be interesting or informative. With time, effort and the right sales and marketing strategy you’ll find sales coming you.

How much time should you spend on social media?

This depends on where your customers are and what you’re selling.

Participation on Twitter, and especially Facebook, is high, companies may find that other networks (and their ad products) are a better strategic fit. Pinterest, for example, has become essential to women’s lifestyle publishers, accounting for as much as 10% of their monthly referral traffic. WordPress, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn may also be worth exploring, depending on your target customer demographic and other needs.

As a consultant trainer LinkedIn is a valuable way to help build more business contacts.

Offline networking and activities can be very important for high value goods and services.

Integrating the new with the old!

How can Cold Calls be turned into Hot Leads?

Sales people  often make lots of calls  to secure sales visits.  Cold calling(when no one knows you) can be demoralising  for both the sales person and the potential customer. Start ups  have to be particularly careful as potential customers don’t know anything about them.

To build trust start with engaging  potential customers. Know who their potential customers are, where they are and why they will buy from you?. Creatively use of a range of  resources  like going to exhibitions, Linkedin, social media, blogging, engaging in conversations with potential customers. and tweeting.

Then the cold calls can be converted  to hot calls which leads to sales.

My database was a shoe box on my desk before I started using Linkedin

I was a database developer in the late 1990’s, programming on Oracle database using PL/SQL. I started my own business before social media was been used in business. 

A shoe box of business cards collected from networking and attending trade fairs was my first database and then came Linkedin.

I can now store and email friends, colleagues and business contacts though email and now have more time to be out face to face with my business contacts. As you can imagine this helps my business generate more results.

Over 4000 friends on Facebook and no one to go out with on a Friday night!

Facebook, Google + and Linkedin are great networking tools allowing you to connect with old friends, colleagues, friends abroad, relatives, schoolmates etc. We still need to be out there talking and communicating with real people and building real relationships in our personal and business lives.

Social networks can be lonely sad places if not having interesting conversations with real people. People like real people and most of our interpersonal communication is through body language, a handshake, tone and intonation of voice, sometimes even a hug

Integrating Digital Marketing into your Sales Process

For many years it has been well accepted that people buy products from people they know, like and trust. What has changed in recent years is how the purchaser decides which product to purchase, or company to buy from. The role of the salesman has changed and will continue to do so. Previously the sales process relied on getting to know the prospect in person through networking, word-of-mouth referrals or wining and dining prospects to get to know them and build trust.

This is no longer the case. Enter  Google , LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and interactive websites. Nowadays whether you are selling to another business or to consumers, your prospects are checking you out online, either before they contact you or after you have contacted them. It’s important to integrate a digital marketing strategy into your sales process