It's time to bring your sales and marketing strategy into the human age. The way we communicate with each other has changed, and our expectations from communications have changed. So why would we keep approaching prospects in the same way as we always have?
How we communicate today
Think about how you communicate now, both for work and in your personal life.
If you sent someone a letter - how long would you comfortably wait for a reply? 30 days? Now, if you sent someone an email - how long do you wait before you start to get upset about them not replying? A week?
How about a text? A couple hours? A social post? A day? And what about your most used apps?
Where social media used to drive our interactions, chat has well and truly taken over. And that’s spilled over into how we want to communicate with brands and businesses too.
It's pretty obvious your sales and marketing strategy needs to take these new preferences into account.
Why your current sales and marketing strategy isn't working
Think about the last time you made a considered purchase online - not your weekly shop or a Black Friday bargain, but an instance which required you to speak with someone. Maybe it was a new car, a mortgage, or even a new dentist.
You probably browsed online, went to a landing page, filled in a form and waited at least 24 hours before someone came back to you (longer if were browsing over the weekend).
That’s not human… and it's not particularly effective either. In that time, you’ve probably looked at several other options, and when they finally get back in touch, you were probably doing something else.
In 2019, we want immediacy and the ability to converse. Is that so much to ask?
A sales and marketing strategy for the 'always-on' generation
Every single sale, regardless of what you’re selling or who you’re selling to… it involves a human at some point.
So, be more human in your approach to sales and marketing.
Here are some quick tips to bring your strategy up to date:
- Use live chat on your website: we’ve seen this increase conversation rates by up to 10x - it can shorten the sales cycle and it engages your prospects.
- Stop looking at sales as transactions: Repeat business, up-selling, referrals. These are all based on your relationship with the customer, so nurture them.
- Stop thinking of people as numbers on a spreadsheet: They're not just leads, they are people. Look at your audience as individuals rather than one homogeneous group, and you'll enjoy a greater level of understanding, connection and trust.
- Use video: Apply this rule as much as you can, wherever you can. Many people prefer absorbing information through video content, and various online channels favour this medium too.
That's our very condensed, whistle stop tour of why and how you should humanise your sales and marketing strategy. If you're hungry for more details, we'd love to tell you more - just click below.
