Sales and Marketing Training | Plan your Sales Campaign
It is good policy to create a plan for your sales campaign. This will help you to think about how you will go about using your limited time and resources to achieve the best results.
Set a goal. What will success look like? Identify a measurable objective for your sales campaign, perhaps expressed as the numbers of opportunities in your pipeline, or as a total potential sales value of your pipeline.
Pick a single proposition. You might have different products or services you can sell, but don’t try to plan a sales campaign for all of them at once. A better strategy is to pick a single “value proposition” and focus your energies around this. It’s less confusing for the customer too.
“The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it”
Every customer or market is different, so you should think about customizing your approach, using a suitable combination of the following methods of making initial contact.
1) Email. A personalized email to a named individual can be a great way of creating initial interest. Don’t expect the prospect to respond, though. Emails are easy to ignore, so follow them up with a phone call.
2) Telephone. Ultimately, you need to speak directly to your prospect, and if they haven’t phoned you, you will need to pick up that phone and make those calls! We’ll look at this activity in the pages that follow.
3) Letters and mailers. As part of a sales campaign using other methods, consider the impact of a personalized letter sent in the post. Perhaps you have some relevant company literature that you can use as a reason for writing to the prospect. Try sending letters like this to a number of people at once, including the senior decision makers. This could give you the excuse you need to call them!
4) Events. In your market, are there industry events and exhibitions where your prospects gather? Get along there and meet them face to face!
5) In person. In some markets, it is acceptable and necessary to call in person at the prospects’ business premises. This is a great way of establishing contact.
“Work out your methods of approach”.
