Marketing is a crucial part of the sales process.
How will your potential customers know how incredible your products and services are if you do not talk about them (market)?
To effectively market your products and services, you need a lot of listening and thinking. Here are 15 things every salesperson needs to know about marketing:
1. Marketing creates the desire to buy
Nobody likes to be sold, even if he dies to buy. Many traders still use traditional (high-pressure) sales tactics to force people to buy. Guess what? It will not work.
It will only turn against you and your business reputation. Yes, of course, you can make a sale, but you can also compromise a long-term relationship with them, especially if the product fails to deliver as advertised.
Marketing helps by creating a desire to buy, paving the way for the sales team to add value without having to be downright aggressive to close the deal.
When a prospect is ready to buy (from a marketing initiative), he will only need a few answers to his questions by a knowledgeable seller. It's as simple as that!
2. Marketing plays an important role in creating an emotional bond.
Before making a purchase, what do you do? You want to know if the product suits you. You want to "feel" connected (emotional connection) with the product.
For example, before buying a house, you want to fall in love to justify your purchase from your partner, is not it?
It's the same with any other purchase.
You see, people buy emotion and support their purchase using logic. Marketing helps to establish that emotional connection (or emotional connection or "sex appeal") that forces people to buy your products and services, especially when prospects are not yet ready to buy.
3. Marketing Can Tell Beautiful Stories About Your Brand, Your Products, and Your Services
Behind every marketing, there is a simple and compelling story, which is also one of the reasons we managed to survive for more than 10,000 years.
How does marketing tell a beautiful story?
If you need inspiration, think about the beautiful story of Jared losing weight by eating Subway's sandwiches. Think about Apple by insisting your customers on "Think Different". Or, the message "Diamonds are Forever" from De Beers.
So what do these stories do? They help all people make buying decisions with confidence.
4. Marketing uses "user data" to eliminate "noise" and help the sales team focus on knowing when a prospect is ready
You have probably heard a lot about the term "user data".
What is it?
Well, the marketing team can take advantage of "user data" (captured by Google Analytics, for example) to eliminate any "noise" and help you and your sales team to know when a prospect is ready to buy. ]
A few years ago, Adobe did it brilliantly. They have created a whole system around these events, which fires when these events are triggered. That's one of the reasons they spent a lot of their resources on technology and not on their software that made them super famous.
5. Marketing is a strategy, a science and an art of persuasion.
Have you read Robert Cialdini's book "The little BIG: small changes that cause great influence"? You do not have?
In his book, Robert unleashes 52 small changes that can instantly have a big impact on your business … and most of the small changes that boost UP sales are usually marketing techniques.
And guess who benefits from all this in the end: yes, that's right, the sales team.
6. Word of mouth marketing inspires sales.
Do you know why people choose to share their opinions online and in real life? If you do not, I highly recommend reading Jonah Berger's edifying book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch On."
In his book, Jonah explains why people like to share their opinions on the web (or in real life).
If you read the book, you will find your answers on why people like to talk about products, services and brands that help BOOST sales. (This book is also full of good marketing examples that have made the buzz for the company.)
7. Marketing helps your prospects to know, love and trust your brand (or at least your business)
Before you buy anything, I want to know you, trust you and love you. If people buy from you, they must know "who you are" and "what you offer" and "how what you offer benefits them (and their lives)".
Let's say I want to buy a "personalized" credit card for my business. I visit a website (Cardzgroup products, for example) that provides "customized" cards for individuals and businesses.
Now, once I arrive on their page, before I even buy a card, I want to do a few things immediately. Personally, I want to know instantly the different types of cards that they offer, the special offers that they offer, say, wholesale purchases, what other customers say about the company and its products and services (customer testimonials). Or maybe even read the company's blog … to have an "idea" of their products and services.
You see, I want to be sure that I like this company. Otherwise, I will never buy anything from them.
It's the same with your prospects. Your prospects must be sure that they love you – and ultimately must feel that they can trust you.
Marketing helps you achieve these goals by building your brand and offering social proof.
8. Marketing people respect and love you
The marketing team knows that you (seller) generate sales that help you pay your bills, your rent and your personal expenses. That's why they always appreciate the skills and knowledge of salespeople to boost sales.
Marketing people, unlike any other department in your company, understand all the challenges of vendors and they have a deep respect for the people who deliver the results.
9. Marketing can help you create a strong relationship with the customer.
Marketing is like having an experienced "wingman" who introduces you to everyone at a party. Even if you do not know anyone at the party, marketing has already made it easy for you and established a strong "emotional connection" long before you met your prospect.
This leadership (initiated by marketing) facilitated salespeople to build a strong relationship with prospects.
10. Marketing work is not possible without the support of the sales team
Marketing people can not do their jobs effectively without the help and support of sales teams. Similarly, salespeople can not generate sales without marketing.
Without marketing, you will have to tackle yourself – telling a story, persuading prospects, establishing an emotional connection, qualifying lead, managing objections – and almost everything else.
Simply put, it is almost impossible and incredibly difficult to grow the business – and generate more sales – without the help of marketing.
11. Marketing plays a huge role in driving sales.
Without marketing, sales teams can not find and qualify prospects and maintain contact with prospects during the sales cycle.
Although sales and marketing are different and reside in various parts of organizations, when they are integrated together, they can help each other to improve the overall performance of the company in terms of profits and income.
12. Marketing builds brand recognition.
A business becomes incredibly successful when it has a solid reputation.
Marketing helps improve brand recognition (or product recall) with a company.
And when the company is able to meet people's high expectations, its reputation is dramatically overwhelmed. And as the company's reputation soars, sales explode and the company thrives.
Effective communication and quality products or services enhance the reputation of the company, which is supported by marketing efforts.
13. Marketing Facilitates Healthy Competition
Marketing helps to spread the message about the prices of products and services, which not only affects the target audience, but also other competing companies.
Without healthy competition, big companies would have no problem selling while small and medium-sized businesses would still struggle to succeed.
Marketing promotes healthy competition (by keeping the price competitive), allowing small business owners and new businesses to succeed and thrive in their market.
14. Marketing helps the sales team to make effective presentations
Marketing can help sellers of a company to deliver effective branding, products and services to potential customers.
Sales guides, for example, can assist a sales representative with in-depth knowledge of prospects, product information, purchasing factors, product benefits, and strategies for overcoming objections. 39; purchase.
Marketing can also help create and prepare customizable presentations for each prospect.
15. Sales teams can benefit significantly from lead training (a marketing process).
Marketing professionals send emails containing valuable content that educate them and understand your business and its products and services.
Content can be anything – from seminar reports to information documents to case studies to "how-to" guides, among other authoritative promotional materials.
During this critical phase, the sales team should NOT contact prospects.
These emails may also contain a system ("CTAs" for example) that allows prospects to request detailed information about a product or sales visit if they wish.
When prospects ask for this request, it is then that the sales team can step in and make appointments, being quite confident that they will be dealing with the "hot lead ".
So, what is the bottom line?
The end result is as follows: marketing provides "air cover" for hard-working salespeople in the field in order to close more business and improve profits and incomes of the company. 39; company. It is a partnership worth the investment .