Saturday, March 21, 2009

34. Marketing and Sales: Engaging and Enrolling the Customer

In order to develop the marketing plan, your team needs to know how to define the business: what you do, how you do it, and for whom and why. This will help you discover your message and relate to your target market.To quickly get your customers in the door, you can try putting up ads in the newspapers (nice quality ads or classified ads), on the net, on the radio; by distributing notifications via email or posters; by holding parties, get-togethers, seminars or other events; or having third parties endorse you.

“Guerrilla marketing” is an excellent way to start, but there is no substitute for long-term marketing and sales strategies. Such plans are what your business is all about. They are about targeting people who have a need that you can address and getting them to respond to you.First build your marketing strategy. Determine the 4Ps – product, price, place and promotion.

Make sure your strategy creates the demand, drives intent to purchase and directs it to you and not a competitor! Next, get from strategy to tactics. Your strategy is only as good as the tactics you’ll use to implement it. You may also need to hire people who can complement you, who can do what you cannot, who can help you create and deliver your message. Hire your weaknesses.

The other half of the marketing team is sales. The marketing team engages the customer; the sales team enrolls him or her by sealing the relationship. The best salespeople facilitate a decision that the customerwill feel good about making and ensure that what the customer perceives he or she is getting matches what he or she actually gets. They are enthusiastic, positive and not pushy.

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