Sales and marketing are especially crucial because it determines if your business is viable in your current market. You can to have a clear vision on how you intend to create exposure to best sell your product.
Here’s a quick guide on what your key sales and marketing considerations should be:
- Unique Value Proposition
- Pricing Strategy
- Sales Plan
- Marketing Plan
- Budget
Unique Value Proposition
What makes your products or/and services unique? Your unique value proposition is what market need you’re planning to solve. This can be a combination of factors including customer service, technology, a twist on a product or service, etc. Understand and convey to your customers/clients why your company deserves to have a sustainable business built around it.
Pricing Strategy
Determine what target market you intend to serve, and are you go for volume or lux. First, check what your competition is charging. This should give you an indication of what customers are willing to spend. Then, determine how you can add more value than your competitors. Market research is important, since until you get your product out there, it’s hard to know for sure how much your added benefit is worth in the customer’s mind.
Remember, even if you’re going for volume by being the lowest-cost provider, you still need to give a higher perceived value to your ideal customer to stand apart from the competition. If you are a small business, it is better to be more unique, since you do not have the economy of scale. Competitors can slash their prices to meet or beat yours, so be very careful to compete on cost.
Sales Plan
Have a clear understanding on how you intend to get your product to customers and how you’ll measure the effectiveness of those methods. Are you selling your product – online, at a retail outlet, or direct sale– determine the type of sales team you’ll need and how you’ll compensate them.
Think how you’ll actually provide the products or services to your customers. Ultimately, you’ll want to sell your product or service in as many ways that make sense for your company: online, at a retail outlet, house parties, direct sale, or wholesale. You can start with focusing on selling through just one of these channels so you can build the foundation of your business before expending to others.
Marketing Plan
To be in business, you need customers to buy your products or services. How do you plan to get them? There are many free or low-cost strategies such as social media channels, referrals, word-of-mouth, public relations, and marketing partners to help cross-promotion, expensive print, TV or radio advertising campaigns.
How do you create strategies to attract customers? Before you start executing on your marketing strategy, think about “branding.” This is the look and feel of your business, what customers experience when interacting with it, from the fonts, colors and text of the website and your business cards to the overall image you portray in the product itself. Every successful business has a memorable brand. Your company brand will be reflected in the execution of your marketing strategy.
Budget
After you write down the marketing plan, strategies and activities, calculate the costs and timeline that you expect to incur. You’ll need to know this number well, so you can allocate enough money and time, thus ensure the proper implementation of your sales and marketing successfully.
If you’re in need of extra support to implement your sales and marketing plan and strategies, you can set a 30 min commentary appointment. We can provide you with available resources that can benefit your company and help you get more customers.