The 4 secrets of the sales cycle
I’ve rewritten this article and elaborated on each of the points for a more comprehensive article. I hope this will help you to determine how and where to spend your advertising & marketing dollars and the importance of supporting your sales cycle.
Not everyone knows this but there is a secret formula to success when it comes to marketing: Every business MUST follow 4 basic steps in order to be successful.
First you must create & establish a memorable corporate identity. A corporate identity, also known as your brand, is made up of a consistent look and feel and a cohesive message both of which contribute to your target market’s ability to remember you and your product name. A potential client has to be able to remember you when it comes time for them to purchase your product or service and a memorable, unique and consistent brand helps them to do just that. Second, you must have a way to bring in leads. A famous entrepreneur once said “you won’t even be able to sell $10 bills for $5, unless someone hears your message”. In order to sell anything, you have to be able to present your sales message to someone and for that you need leads. A lead is simply someone who’s willing to listen to what you have to say (your sales message). Third, you have to qualify and sell those leads (or sort out the bad ones & keep the good ones). In any group of potential customers there will be some that are interested but not ready to buy, some that are interested that are ready to buy and others that aren’t interested at all. To move your potential client through the sales funnel, you need to present your message and then sort out those that are interested and ready to buy from the rest of the pack. Finally, you have to build relationships with those qualified leads…i.e., you must put some effort into keeping your name or brand in front of your potential & existing clients, so they don’t forget you. Whenever you push a lead through a sales funnel, they will need to hear your advertising or sales message more than once (aka frequency). During that time, you can build a sort of “business relationship” with that lead that will hopefully develop interest in your offering, cultivate trust in your product & brand and eventually lead to them recalling your name at the time of purchase.
It’s my job as a marketing & advertising professional to encourage our clients to invest in some advertising activities that support each of these four areas. If any one piece of the above “cycle” is missing or weak or unsupported by your marketing efforts, then your sales cycle will collapse and you’ll miss or lose sales. I could write a book on each and every one of the above “rules” because I’ve made a career out of understanding and implementing tactics that will achieve results in each of these areas, but that’s not the focus of this article. The main message of this article is to help you to understand that you can’t pick some advertising tactic arbitrarily out of thin air and then depend on that one thing to bring in fantastic advertising results. People do that frequently and that’s one of the reason’s why I always hear clients say “I placed an ad once and it didn’t work.” Whenever you embark on an advertising campaign, it’s important to recognize the steps that potential clients go through to locate and get familiar with a brand in order to make a purchasing decision. Then it’s up to you to make sure that your advertising efforts support the entire sales process to best support and encourage your target market to consider & select your product.
Here is a list of advertising tactics divided up by the sales area they will best support. Not all ad tactics are mutually exclusive….they often support more than one area of the sales cycle. When deciding how to spend your advertising dollars, make sure you have some “tactics” or projects in each of the following areas:
1. Corporate Identity/Brand Development – Create a unique & memorable brand
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Marketing, Advertising, PR & Social Media plans
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Name & Tagline creation
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Logo
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Campaign/look & feel
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Business Package – letterhead, envelopes & business cards
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Web URL – get your web address and host it so you can use that email account
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Email signature
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Uniforms
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Signage
2. Lead Development – Get leads coming in the door and collect basic lead contact info
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Web Advertising:
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Pay per click
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Landing page (for banners & PPC ads)
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Banner Ads
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Web listings
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HTML Emails
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SEO/Site Submissions
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Print Advertising:
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Direct mail
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Magazine Ads
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Newspaper Ads
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Broadcast Advertising:
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TV Commercials
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Radio Commercials
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Theatre Ads
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Trade shows/Trade show booth/promotions
3. Lead Qualification & Sales – Once you’ve got leads, tell them who you are and sell them!
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Website
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Brochures – print or digital
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Flyer/Product Spec Sheets
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Product Packaging
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Point of purchase displays
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Presentations/PowerPoint
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Product photos
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Product samples
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Client Bio Sheet
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Corporate Background Sheet
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Referral sheet
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Quote/Proposal presentation format/design
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Folder
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Sales Pitch
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Giveaways
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Pricing Strategy
4. Relationship Building/Brand Promotion – Keep your customers coming back for more
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Social Media
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HTML Newsletter
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Referral Program/package
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Promotions/Sweepstakes/Contests
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Customer Loyalty Programs
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Public Relations/Press Releases
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Sponsorship of local sports teams
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Join Chamber/Networking events
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Uniform
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Signage
