Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Getting sales when times are tough

If times are tough where do you look for extra business. Is there a secret, untapped, vein of potential revenue that you can try?

Maybe there is a vast community of potential customers that you've never even come across before that are just crying out for your solution?

Sad news folks - the reality is that it's unlikely. So best you look elsewhere.

It's widely accepted that most businesses fail miserably when it comes to looking after, and selling to, past satisfied customers. Why is that? These people are probably the most receptive to your offer of further products and services.

But, beware, if you haven't contacted them at all since you made your last sale, don't just blast them with a sales pitch. That will go down like a lead balloon.

So what can you do?

Try regularly keeping them informed about things that are related to your product but are helpful to them. It could be tips on how to use your service or product better, changes in legislation that affect them or research progress that could help them in the future when they are considering replacement. The objective is to be their helpful friend in your sector.

By all means add a small piece at the end of your connection to remind them about what you have to offer, but don't make it an all out sales pitch.

The easiest way to do this of course is by email. That way the process is much simpler and cost effective. If you haven't been keeping in touch in the past, don't expect a huge rush of orders from your first mailings. But if you seed links back to appropriate parts of your website for more information, or a phone number to call for help, you could end up with some leads you might have otherwise lost to your competition.

Managing an on-going email campaign such as this can be difficult without the right tools.

There are two providers I use regularly, aWeber - probably accepted as the industry standard, and SendFree - not quite free if you want the emails to look right, but still inexpensive.

If you would like to go down this route and need some help and guidance, please contact me through my site Alloy CRM site where I help businesses increase sales, revenue and profit.

http://alloycrm.aweber.com/
http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105448/

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