The slow season is here; it’s time to focus on cutting costs and finding new revenue sources. Does your company’s bottom line need a boost? Here are some cost-effective sales boosters.
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Ti Tip 1: Great Customer Service Can Increase Sales: The saying goes, “A satisfied customer tells three friends; an angry customer tells 3,000.” The inception of consumer review social media sites such as Angie’s List and Kudzu make it easy for customers to tell everyone in cyberspace about their experience with the company. Don’t let a negative review hurt sales. Respond quickly to complaints and thank customers for praise.
Customer service should not end with the sales or phone representatives. Make it a companywide initiative. Empower the sales and customer service team to respond quickly and efficiently. After the sale, send a personalized “thank you” note to customers to leave a positive lasting impression.
Conducting market research with current, former, and potential customers will provide areas to focus on and improve. A well-written survey with measurable results will provide the data needed to analyze services. Sites including surveymonkey.com and constantcontact.com offer low- cost, web- based surveys.
2. Tip 2: Reduce Costs and Interact More With Your Customers: The internet has made it easy to reduce meeting and travel costs. According to Gotomeeting.com, virtual meetings with clients or webinars can reduce travel budgets by 90%. Webinars can also be recorded to share on the web for future presentations.
Vontage.com offers voiceover IP programs for phone and fax at a fraction of the cost of a normal land line. Similar internet-based phone services, including Skype, offer free calling through the internet. This can significantly reduce domestic and international phone costs.
3. Tip 3: Low Cost Brand Awareness: In today’s market every company needs an interactive digital marketing plan. Social media sites, e-mail blasts, blogs, e-check-ins and group buy- ins can increase brand recognition and customer base. Google Ad words and Facebook advertising offer a cost- effective way to target only the customers the business wants to attract. A great SEO (search engine optimization) program mixing Facebook, Bing, and Google will increase website traffic exponentially. Enfortegroup.com offers a complete digital marketing outsource solution at a low monthly rate.
4. Tip 4: Increase Sales Using Demographics: Economist Viffredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the wealth in his country: 20% of the people own-- 80% of the wealth. It became famous when Dr. Joseph Juran, a quality management pioneer, used it to describe economics as “virtual few and trivial many.” Dr. Juan’s observation evolved into the principle, 20% of something is always responsible for 80% of the results.
The 80/20 rule applied to a customer base will separate customers who will actually increase the bottom line from the ones who will not. The core customer base should receive more focus and a higher level of service. The same theory can be applied to your leads.
Placing customers into demographic groups and then into psychographics will help you form a clearer picture of the types of customers to attract. The key is to determine the services or products each group is interested in and may not get from the competition. Websites including City search and the US Census Beau provide detailed breakdowns of area demographics.
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