Email marketing: what it is and how to implement it

Has it happened to you that sales are not going so well in your business? Do you want to promote a new product in the market but you do not get the desired results? Don't worry! It is not that your product or service is bad, you are just not implementing the correct sales strategy and in this article, we will help you with it.

On many occasions, the resources allocated to lead capture tools and to increase sales are poorly invested, which translates into poorly qualified leads and difficulty in retaining customers.

Understanding how a sales strategy is carried out is essential to help a company grow, deal with low sales and ensure its survival in the market.

For this reason, in this article, we will explain what a winning sales strategy is all about and we will share the best tips to develop one.

Let's get started!

What is a sales strategy?

How to create a winning sales strategy

It is a specific plan that a company develops to offer its products or services with the idea of maximizing its income. This plan is accompanied by decision-making and the implementation of various tactics.

A sales strategy must undergo recurring evaluations to optimize the desired results. In addition, this plan implies:

• Create a value proposition.
• Define the buyer person.
• Define the sales pitch.
• Determine the most feasible sales channels for the company.

In addition, another important element in a winning sales strategy is to establish a sales funnel, which represents the entire process of a customer from when he is considering buying a product or service from the company until the acquisition is finalized.

The effectiveness of the sales process depends on the type of marketing and sales strategy that is implemented in your organization.

Importance of implementing a sales strategy

Developing a sales strategy is crucial for the development of a company. Many entrepreneurs focus on building products and creating marketing plans, leaving sales vulnerable.

To understand more easily the importance of a sales strategy, we will explain its difference from a marketing strategy :

• The sales strategy is focused on selling products or services to generate measurable income.
• The marketing strategy aims to increase the visibility of a company.

No matter how good a company's marketing plan is, it won't help if its sales plan doesn't deliver the desired results. The sales strategy must provide the expected results and allow it to serve as an economic cover for the marketing plan.

In conclusion, a sales strategy is important because it allows:

• Adapt sales techniques to the company's situation.
• Define who your target audience is and how you approach them.
• Recruit the necessary human talent to achieve your sales objectives.

8 tips for creating a successful sales strategy

Knowing how to carry out a sales strategy helps to improve the economic results of the company. In the same way, it enhances relationships with customers and enriches the customer experience.

To develop a sales strategy it is essential to know how your sales funnel works. In that case, you will understand when to approach your prospect, if he is ready to buy from you, or if you need to give him more time to inform him about your product or service.

Below, we share the most important recommendations to develop a successful sales plan:

1. Make a diagnosis of your company's sales

To find out the current state of your organization's sales, ask yourself the following questions:

• How much did the company's sales representative active in the X period? (It can be a year, semester, or month, depending on the type of product you offer).
• How much was invested to achieve said income?
• Did profits go up or down from the previous period?
• Who are your most loyal consumers? What aspects do they have in common?
• What is your audience's favorite product or service?
• Have you implemented any internal action that has impacted the sales volume?

You can complement these questions with indicators that measure sales performance (KPIs), such as:

• Average response time to the prospective customer.
• Conversion rate from lead to consumer.
• The average number of attempts before the sale.
• The visitor to lead conversion rate.
• Cost per lead.
• Conversion rate.
• Customer acquisition cost.
• Length of the sales cycle.

2. Define your buyer person

The buyer person refers to the profile of your ideal client. To define it, you must take into account certain information from consumers and your value proposition.

Thanks to this analysis, you can know and favorably use the psychological, demographic, and social aspects of your ideal clients.

You only have to consider 3 simple steps to elaborate this model:

1. Demographically segment your customers: With this, you have the opportunity to know important information such as the age, income level, and gender of your regular customers.
2. Understand the preferences of your consumers: here you must consider the communication channels that your users prefer, the formats that they like the most to consume your content, and what are the social networks that they use to find out about your company.
3. Define the behavior of your customers: what is the payment method they use the most? Do they buy in person or do they prefer online shopping?

3. Set SMART goals

SMART is an acronym in English that attributes the following concepts: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Temporary.

At the moment that you have already determined the circumstance in which your company is and the profile of your potential consumer, it is time to establish the objectives.

Next, we will explain the SMART methodology for the objectives of your sales strategy :

• Specific: It means that they have to cover specific departments or areas of your company.
• Measurable: For your objective to be measurable, you must define a metric to evaluate whether or not it was met.
• Achievable: If you set realistic goals, you allow them to be a challenge rather than an illusory aspiration.
• Relevant: The relevance of the goals refers to whether they are framed in the company's strategic planning.
• Temporary: All the aspects that we have just mentioned have to be expressed in a certain unit. That is, each objective requires an expiration date.  

For example, if you set an objective such as "increase sales volume", even if it is a valid goal, it does not comply with the SMART methodology because it is not specific, measurable, or temporary.

The correct way to formulate this objective would be “to increase the sales volume of product X by 10% during June”.

4. Define a budget for sales and marketing

This point is very important because it is what will allow you to develop the actions to implement your sales strategy.

In short, it is impossible to sell if no money is invested. This not only applies to the product or service, but also to the marketing plan, the sales strategy, and the actions that improve the customer experience.

As we have told you in the previous section, the budget (as well as the objectives) must be realistic and temporary. It does not matter if you are just starting out or if your company is already consolidated.

Digital marketing is a great alternative for startups who want to develop a good sales strategy and a solid marketing plan.

In fact, content marketing has been proven to be 6x cheaper than traditional marketing and delivers 3x more leads.

Improving the customer experience is also a factor that you should consider including in your budget since PwC studies reveal that 75% of customers are willing to pay more if they offer a good customer experience.

5. Establish the most suitable sales channels for your business

When establishing sales channels, it is most appropriate to consider the channel that your customer prefers.

Sales channels can be offline or online. Thanks to the digitization of the business sector, most sales strategies consider digital channels more, since they are more preferred by consumers.

Among the main offline sales channels, we find:

• Physical store and points of sale: This includes brand stores and distributor stores.
• Call center: These are calls made by sales agents to offer a product or service. The fundamental purpose of this modality is to close a deal in the same telephone conversation.
• Direct sale: It refers to a sale that is made directly between a service provider of the company and the consumer; without the intervention of a physical establishment.

For their part, online sales channels include:

• E-commerce: refers to an online platform where the products or services of a company are traded. For example, the Samsung online store.
• Social media: Today social networks can be used to sell. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp... they are all platforms used to close business deals.
• Marketplace: These are virtual platforms that allow the sale of products and services, as is the case with Amazon or Shein.
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6. Let your collaborators know the strategy

Do not do this alone, remember that there is a team to have better results in your sales strategy.

To communicate the plan you have to your collaborators, follow the following recommendations:

• Convey a concise pitch that encourages each worker's collaboration and commitment to the sales plan. To do this, explain to each one what their role will be in it.
• Diversify the channels through which you are going to make your strategy public ( email, newsletters, social networks, and information billboards, among others).
• Be willing to take into account the opinion of the collaborators about the strategy.

7. Use a CRM

With all your collaborators working on your sales strategy, you will need a platform that allows you to capture, follow up and cultivate your leads. CRM software ( Customer Relationship Management ) are tools designed for that.

With Escala's all-one CRM platform, the most complete and easy-to-use digital marketing and sales platform, you'll have the ability to automatically capture and store information on your potential customers. Instead of manually entering data, this CRM captures information from leads.

As if that were not enough, a sales CRM helps cultivate your prospective customer's thanks to certain sales campaigns. Through this mechanism, you can create a content marketing campaign to send information of interest to your potential client.

With this, you can reduce customer resistance and encourage the sale of your products or services.

8. Evaluate that everything is carried out according to what you planned

Putting the sales strategy to work does not mean the end of the process. Instead, measuring the performance of what you planned allows you to correct errors whenever it is necessary.

Let's refresh what we talked about a few sections ago about sales KPIs. At this time you should use them to determine the performance of your planning.

If you consider that your company does not have the time to do this, you have the possibility of automating the process with Escala's CRM.

How does Escala's CRM help you manage a sales strategy?

The moment your visitors register on your website, this data will be saved in Escala's CRM.

This platform helps you increase the chances of success in your sales, thanks to the fact that it identifies the most valuable potential clients and those that need immediate attention.

In addition, this CRM allows you to know the status of your company through dashboards issued by the software. With this, you will know the percentage of visitors that become leads, how many leads become customers, and the volume of sales that are estimated to be obtained in a certain period, among others.