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Marketing/Sales Hints

Co-operative Promotion 

As a means of broadening your target market base and advising of the availability of products that you have for sale, have you considered negotiating with another organisation to sell their products for a commission? You may be able to do this as a value-add to the products that you are currently supplying to your customers. Making cooperative promotion sales may be a means of promoting your services to other potential customers who are not currently customers of your business, but they may be interested in the cooperative products that you are selling.

Database Clean Up

Databases can become obsolete very quickly. This can be due to people leaving their positions, businesses changing their contact details (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.). Every six (6) months is an ideal time to check the integrity of your database by contacting the organisation that you have listed in your database to ensure that the contact person is still present and that the contact details in your dataset are still appropriate and up to date.

Send Articles to Your Customers

Whilst it is true that we are living in an era where there is potentially information overload, many customers are still hard-pressed to find articles, magazines, books, YouTube video clips, etc., that could be beneficial to their business operations. Why not have a policy of ensuring that, whenever you notice any such articles, you send a copy or alert your customer of the article, etc. This will show the customers that you do have concerns about their businesses and that you’re trying to assist them in their knowledge of important things, occurring in the marketplace, which might affect their business.

Customer Surveys Do Help

Operating a business is a very lonely affair, especially as more and more sales transactions are conducted over the internet. Why not design a short customer survey form and send it to your customers, to seek feedback about the types of products and services you provide, and ask what your customers think about them, what improvements could be made, how your products and services compare to others in the marketplace. Unfortunately, the majority of surveys do not have a high return rate. Therefore, you might have to offer an “inducement” for your customers to return the survey forms. The “inducement” could be an entry in a draw for a prize, a discount on the next product the customer purchases from you, perhaps send them a “dollar scratchie ticket” in advance, or offer them a business book or article. Surveys are a great way to keep in touch with your customers and show them you care about the products and services you are offering.

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written by:

McKinley Plowman