Attract
You can’t sell anything unless you have the attention of your prospect. Often there are plenty of things they would rather be doing than listening to your sales pitch. So stage one is to gain their attention. This can take many forms. Creating a strong and memorable headline in an advert, getting your company featured in a newspaper, having your website found by relevant search terms on Google, and creating a memorable cover for a brochure are just a few examples of grabbing people’s attention.
Convert
Once you have attracted a prospect’s attention, the next stage is converting as many people as possible into committing to buy from you. To do this you need to understand what is stopping people buying from you and show them why these fears are unfounded. Common objections include: price, convenience and fear of making the wrong buying decision. This is often a severely overlooked area part of the marketing process, but examples of this include preparing case studies that explain how you helped others, creating a brand that builds confidence, regularly being quoted in trade magazines, and relevant client testimonials are just a few examples of ways to grab people’s attention.
Retain
The hardest way to grow a business is by new customer acquisition. For many companies the sales process is a long and often costly one. It makes sense therefore to do your best to look after existing customers, investing as much care into retaining them as into win new customers. Ways to do this include customer care surveys, staying in touch via newsletters, offering previews and discounted pricing to secure ongoing commitment. Finally, asking your customer base what your strengths are and what new products or services you could offer can be a successful way of retaining and extending your customer base.
Extend
Many companies find that one of the best ways to grow is to extend the range of products or services that they offer to their existing client base. For example, a company that sells ice cream could also offer toppings and sauces. Its customers already associate the company with the ice cream market, and so extending the range makes sense. Extension also covers the depth of the relationship – i.e. selling to more people or more departments, or increasing influence further by asking for referrals from other people in a similar position.
As you can imagine, combining these different areas can help you achieve rapid growth through marketing. The key is to work out a system and then carry it through on a consistent basis, whilst constantly refining and repeating. This takes the guess work out of marketing and makes results more predictable.
If you would like help in growing your business by applying the most appropriate methods for you, please contact us on 01858 374 170 for a personalised, no obligation meeting.
