Products don’t sell themselves you know
Getting your products in front of shoppers will take so much more than simply putting them online. With this in mind you need to create a sales strategy. Having a plan will help you to focus your sales efforts and make sure your investment is going to the right places.
In this article we will:
- Explain what a sales strategy is
- Talk through why you need one
- How you need to analyse the market
- How to create sales objectives
- Discuss choosing sales channels
What is a sales strategy?
It is a plan of how you will get your products in front of the right people and importantly how you will get them to buy. It will contain your targets for the various sales channels and precise actionable instructions for them.
The sales strategy should be part of your wider business plan. If you have different product lines in your offering you will need to create a different sales strategy for each of these. There will no doubt be a lot of cross-over but if there are different target audiences involved you will need to alter your plan.
Why do you need a sales strategy?
Having a clearly defined approach will help you to save time and money – streamlining your energy into the areas that will reap the most conversions.
If your targets are clearly defined in a plan you will find it easier to measure your performance and see which sales avenues are working the best for your company. Creating targets, whether you have a sales team or are doing the work yourself, will push the sales efforts.
Analyse the market
Knowing your market inside is essential for most aspects of your business – especially selling. Knowing what others are doing and how customers are already behaving will give you an idea of how they might behave in relation to your business.
Make a list of your competitors. Take a look at how they reach their customers and how many points of sale you can perceive. Are these the sales avenues you also need to go down?
Try and think of ways in which your target customers perhaps aren’t being served. Are there sales channels which your competitors aren’t targeting but might work for your customers? What can you do to differentiate from other retailers and add value?
How do you go about creating sales objectives?
The first area you need to look at is your time scales for your sales strategy. Are you looking at a period of one month or six. Once you have decided how long you are giving your sales to meet your objectives you can start creating them.
You must start by looking at all of your individual products. What is your target market for the product. Is it seasonal in any way? What is the price point like? With all of the information in front of you, hopefully you can come up with a rough figure of how many you expect to sell.
When you’re setting objectives it is useful to use SMART – the five part objective plan. It stands for
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Scaled. If you keep these ideals in mind you should be on track.
Obviously your sales strategy will change as you analyse your customers’ behaviour. You need to be nimble in your approach and keep a close eye on analytics. If you do have a sales team, make sure you listen to their feedback and don’t be afraid to change your strategy when appropriate.
Look at your sales channels
If you have researched the market appropriately you should have quite a good list of sales channels at your disposal. Your list will probably contain some of the following:
Mobile, online marketplaces, affiliate marketing, social media and brick-and-mortar store.
Look at your list and create a cost evaluation of using these channels. For example using a marketplace such as Not On The High Street involves joining fees. How much time can you spent reaching people on social media?
When you are starting off it is wise to try as many channels as possible to find out which ones work best for your business. Then you can readjust your investment to focus on channels which sell the most.
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