With tech evolving at lightning speed and the business landscape becoming increasingly more competitive, organizations are leveraging today’s tools to gain a competitive edge. From customer experience to data-driven decision-making, the application of technology to do business is crucial in a company’s ability to survive.
One area where technology is gaining popularity is boosting sales performance. Here are six ways businesses are using cutting edge tech to boost their sales performance.
1. Lead Qualification Tools
Most businesses obsess with lead generation, but pay little heed to lead qualification. This results in overworked and underperforming sales teams. The solution? Accurate customer segmentation based on historical customer purchase data. Access to such valuable data helps sales teams focus their efforts on the most promising leads, thus eliminating wasted time pursuing low-quality leads.
The key is to look for sales management tools with lead qualification features. Implement them into your sales process and watch how quickly the productivity of your sales team is maximized.
2. Eliminate Objections with the Right Content
Nobody likes the yapping sales guy. People want accurate and precise answers to their questions, not a pushy agent trying to convince them their product is the best thing to happen to them since sliced bread. At the end of any sales pitch, your consumer will likely have several questions or doubts about your product or service.
The key is to know what they are in advance, so you can address them before they come up. Anticipate those objections and use the power of technology to your advantage. Enable your sales people to share targeted, useful, and contextual content with prospective clients through email or text messaging. This approach of organically guiding your leads through their purchase journey with the right content at the right time shatters consumer objections and bolsters product benefits, thus warming them up to your pitch.
3. Stop Broadcasting. Connect With Consumers Instead.
Before social media marketing became a thing, marketing was dominated by mainstream media. Whether it was tv advertising or direct mail, the focus was sell, sell, sell. Today’s consumer is much more savvy and will tune you out if you take that approach. For businesses to thrive today, knowing how to properly use social media is key. Social media is not just about getting the word out. It’s about opening up two-way communication. Here’s how to do it.
Build a strong audience on your social media channels by engaging them with outstanding content. The content can either be useful or simply entertaining. Either way, get the audience to interact with you. The more they do, the more connected they’ll feel to your brand. This familiarity opens them up to your offers next time you have something of value.
4. Turn Customers into Smart Shoppers
To build customer loyalty, take steps to make your customers feel smart every time they make a purchase with you. Offer incentives like coupons, free gift cards, loyalty points, etc. Get them more involved with your brand or your “system” by rewarding them with membership cards or exclusive loyalty cards. Rewarding your customers forges a powerful brand-consumer relationship that could lead to referrals and word-of-mouth promotion.
Now imagine combining those incentives with an app. A branded app which enables your customers to track their exclusive benefits and access your announcements or promotions is a powerful way to get your customers invested in your brand. Look no further than the ubiquity of mobile app payments to see how much people love their apps. The easier you make it for your customers to upgrade their features, the more revenue you’ll generate. Customers are more than happy to pay more for convenience.
5. Use The Power of Automation
If you’re not using automation in your sales process, you’re missing out. Just look at these staggering statistics: When companies implement sales automation, their conversion rate improves 225%, their lead generation is 3x higher, and they see a 360% increase in placed orders. With figures like that, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of sales automation.
How else can you use sales automation? One-click upsells, context-based content delivery, sales triggers based on the customer’s position in the purchase journey, upsell recommendations…the list goes on. And best of all, every one of these options eliminates repetitive sales tasks that cost you money.
6. Deploy Knowledge Wizards
Modern consumers turn to their mobile phones for almost everything. Even when they’re in a store, they use their mobile phones to check information on a product. Retail employees have known this for sometime and have reported that their sales performance would greatly improve if they have access to a mobile device to find relevant information for their customers.
Make mobile devices a critical component of customer information delivery. With a relatively minor upfront investment, your staff could have all the product information they need to make the sale.
Conclusion
In today’s fast-paced mobile world, it’s imperative we acknowledge that traditional sales and marketing is all but dead. Oftentimes, it’s better to rely on new tech. For your company to survive, you must be willing to embrace the ever-changing business landscape and evolve with it. If you haven’t already, start by exploring your options today and you’ll be ready for what’s to come tomorrow.
What tools have you used to improve sales performance? Let us know in the comments. And if you have any ideas for future articles, write us at feedback@dyl.com. We’re always looking for new ideas!
