8 Unique Sales Ideas Used For Promotion Across The World
Every marketer desires more leads, signups, and subscribers while spending as little money as possible. Every day, businesses and causes of all sizes compete for your attention and persuade you to buy their products, embrace a category, change your opinion of their company, support their cause, or vote for their candidate.
Some marketing and advertising campaigns have done that job more convincingly and
memorably than others over the years. Many have survived the test of time.
Competing at the Bottom of Funnel
Every company wants to steal customers from competitors, but few make it their top priority. If you have a competitor who offers a similar product but isn’t providing great results for its customers, you have an opportunity to target those people.
Flash discounts, coupons, and limited sales, this space is filled with quick-fix strategies to divert aware consumers to your brand.
Start A Referral Program
Referral marketing may be your best bet for quickly increasing your followers. Customers can promote your product for you through referral programs. It’s a simple concept, but it’s underutilized by small businesses.
To pay actors or sports figures, you don’t need the budget of a major corporation. “Real” people are often more effective influencers than celebrities.
Try To Hold Photo Contests
Photo contests are a low-cost and simple way to engage potential customers with your brand. They’re simple to enter (anyone on Facebook or Instagram can submit a photo with your specific tags), and they provide you with great user-generated content that you can reuse on other channels.
Provide the winner with a special prize or discount, and don’t forget to ask them to share something about your brand to be considered.
Imitate the Experts
Sometimes being creative entails imitating someone else. It may appear counterintuitive but doing what has already worked for someone else can greatly benefit your business. While the audience and subject matter of the content may differ from yours, it’s a good idea to look at what other brands are doing well and learn from them. Examine the headlines, content structure, and how they promote the posts.
Make Your Product A Challenge
One of the most difficult aspects of viral marketing campaigns is tying the viral content back to the company’s actual products. You can achieve two goals by going against the grain and making your product the focal point of your viral marketing campaign.
Food companies, for example, ask their customers to create the brand’s next great flavour.
To make this work for you, identify the need that your product fills and turn it into a challenge for others to fill. They’ll be forced to keep your brand at the forefront of their minds throughout the process.
Begin Your Company as An Invite-Only Platform
We want what we can’t have as consumers. If you’re just getting started, consider opening your website to an exclusive list of customers to generate interest. Consider the early days of Facebook and Pinterest.
When only one person has access. Their friends will also want access.
Make Use of Popular Hashtags
Participating in weekly hashtag themes (via Twitter), such as #FlashbackFriday or #ThrowbackThursday, can help your brand get the attention it deserves. You become an active participant in the community and have access to an audience far beyond your typical follower count.
Active and regular participation with hashtags that thousands, if not millions, of people, are already using also increases your followership and visibility.
Distribute Stickers
Stickers may appear to be a ridiculously simple way to grow your business, but they can have a significant impact. You can get a lot of eyes on your brand by giving away free stickers (or other quick, easy, and cheap marketing swag) and encouraging people to post them in public places.
Real Life Success Stories with Unique Sales Ideas
Volkswagen: Think Small
The Volkswagen Think Small campaign is widely regarded as the greatest print campaign of all time, as well as one of the most successful campaigns before the rise of television. Before their 1959 campaign, automobiles were regarded as powerful and fashionable status symbols.
Volkswagen went in the opposite direction, which turned out to be a great move because it forced car norms to be reconsidered. They enticed readers with the “think small” slogan, and once they were hooked, they drew them in with the benefits of Volkswagen.
Commercials for Apple's Mac vs. PC
Commencing in 2006, Apple produced a series of commercials that featured two people, one of whom was a Mac and the other a PC. The Mac was a young, attractive man, whereas the PC was an older gentleman who stumbled over his words.
They would simply talk about the various things they could do, with the PC always seeming to struggle to keep up with the Mac. PCs in some commercials were unable to communicate with other devices such as digital cameras. In others, the computer would repeatedly freeze or restart.
Dove: Real Beauty
Before their most successful marketing campaign, Dove was negated by numerous brands in a crowded market. They discovered that only a small percentage of the women interviewed thought they were beautiful, which prompted them to launch their campaign.
The campaign helped to broaden the narrow definition of beauty and get people involved in making women feel empowered about their appearance. The campaign was so successful that it inspired other brands to follow suit.
They took a sensitive but popular topic for their customers and created ads based on what their customers believe rather than what is true. Even though it was a simple campaign, it had a significant impact.
Lipton Green Tea
Lipton Green Tea created a shopping cart that tracks your steps, calories burned, and time spent moving at the grocery store to encourage consumers to make healthier choices while shopping.
The cart, which is aimed at people who are too busy for regular exercise, is designed to show customers how many calories they can burn just by walking around the grocery store. The hope is that if they can see how many calories they’re burning in real-time, they’ll reconsider what they put in their shopping cart.
Uber POOL
Uber’s in-house marketing team launched a guerrilla campaign in Mexico City as part of a major advertising push in Latin America, sending out a small army of drones outfitted with cheeky signs promoting Uber POOL. While stuck in rush hour traffic, drivers were confronted with small planes and their mini billboards.
Although they do not intend to replicate the stunt in other markets (because doing so in the United States or Europe would necessitate significant bureaucratic hoop-jumping), the stunt garnered significant media coverage for the car service app.
Conclusion
Coming up with an unusual advertisement can be difficult. First, you’ll need to conduct a series of creative brainstorming sessions. Then, you must ensure that your campaign is understandable and captivating to the audiences to whom you present it.
One way to see if people will truly understand and engage with your unusual campaign is to first present it to a focus group.
One of the most important components of the promotion mix is sales promotion and RewardPort creates various types of sales promotions that work with your target audience to build long-term relationships with your customers.
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Brand Loyalty in Modern Marketing: Ways to Improve It and Retain Customers
As an entrepreneur or marketer, you are probably intrigued by some brands that have a cult-like following. Their customers remain loyal to them for nearly a lifetime and make repeat purchases whenever they require that specific product or service, regardless of price. Such brands can be found in every industry and come in a variety of sizes and shapes.
Value of Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty has proven to be extremely important in creating iconic brands and retaining customers for an extended period, even a lifetime.
The following points emphasize the significance of brand loyalty for any type of business:
• Lower acquisition costs
You must be aware that the cost of acquiring a new customer is five to seven times that of retaining an existing one. This is where brand loyalty comes in handy. An effective brand loyalty program can lower the cost of acquiring new customers by keeping existing customers loyal and enticing them to make repeat purchases.
• Retargeting and remarketing made simple
According to one recent study, businesses are only 5 to 20% likely to sell their products or services to a new prospect while they are 60 to 70% likely to sell to an existing customer.
• Increased customer trust
Customers have exceptional trust in successful brand loyalty programs because they focus on delighting and exceeding their expectations every time. This gives them a significant competitive advantage and allows them to charge a higher price for their products and services than their competitors. Despite charging a premium, they retain most of their customers and receive consistent repeat purchases.
Top Ways to Increase Brand Loyalty
Before making a purchase, modern customers scour websites and research the products they intend to purchase.
You can’t rely on traditional methods to generate loyalty when customers are 60% to 80% of the way down the funnel before speaking with anyone at your company.
At the same time, fewer customers remain loyal to a single brand.
Loyal customers are profitable customers because they are less expensive to market as they purchase more frequently. However, only 27% of initial sales become repeat customers. Companies must invest in cultivating customer loyalty.
• Begin with your employees
If you want satisfied customers, start with your employees. Customers notice and feel it when they are appreciated, valued, and included. Call your boss and co-workers. Inquire how they are doing and what you can do to assist them. Be adaptable. Be adaptable. Make communications more personal. Employees will then pass it on even if their boss is not looking! Loyalty spreads like wildfire.
• Maintain Contact Between Projects
Maintain contact with current and former customers in between projects. Customers can stay informed about your service offerings by receiving a client-focused newsletter regularly. When comparing the cost per new lead versus the cost of retention, a client discount is also a great incentive and a justified expense.
• Connectivity and functionality should be combined
The combination of brand functionality and emotional connectivity is redefining brand loyalty. Products and services must not only solve a problem but also reflect the views and preferences of the customer. Marketers who strike this balance will build stronger, more intimate relationships with brand ambassadors.
• Engage your customers
Connecting with your users aids in the development of a sense of belonging and community. To get your users excited and engaged, share your brand’s new and exciting developments, as well as news and opinions in your industry.
You can use social media to inform customers about new trends, special deals and discounts, and your company’s next steps. The more like a conversation it feels, the better.
Another way to keep your existing customers happy is to recognize their needs before they even realize they have them. Predict what your customers are likely to want using your customer behavior data, and then provide it to them.
A simple Thank You note, Happy Birthday or Happy Holidays greeting will also go a long way. Customers in any industry want to know that you care about them outside of business transactions.
• Personalize programs
When it comes to brand loyalty programs, there are numerous reward and incentive options available to keep your customers engaged and loyal. Most successful brands use a variety of options, including points programs, hybrid loyalty programs, tiered programs, fee-based loyalty programs, and others. Using a variety of loyalty programs can be extremely appealing and valuable to various customers.
• Create a distinct brand position
Nothing beats your company’s distinct brand position when it comes to increasing brand loyalty. Unique brand statements are created by strong brands to highlight their brand values, unique selling propositions (USPs), and market position.
A distinct brand position communicates what distinguishes your company and the value it adds to the lives of your customers. Create a distinct brand position that resonates with your target customers. Determine what distinguishes you from your competitors and list the strongest points of your brand that distinguishes it from the competition.
• Channel sales partners should be rewarded
The comprehensive and multi-pronged nature of the brand loyalty program is its best feature. Working with the right channel sales partners and providing them with appropriate rewards and incentives is one of the most effective ways to boost your brand equity.
A brand can benefit greatly from collaborating with the right channel partners and creating personalized and tailored rewards for them. It will encourage channel partners to prioritize one brand over others, thereby improving brand identity and equity.
Appropriately rewarding channel partners create a virtuous cycle that tends to pass the benefits on to the end customers.
• Increase loyalty by using reciprocity
Reciprocity is a social construct proven to increase loyalty. Kindness creates a sense of obligation in the recipient, who instinctively wants to repay the kindness.
There are two types of reciprocity, and both can be used to increase customer loyalty to customer service.
A surprise gift or gesture is surprise reciprocity. For example, if you send your customer free swag or tickets to a company event without warning.
Trumpeted reciprocity occurs when someone gives or does something beneficial in a way that demonstrates that they are going above and beyond. It doesn’t mean you have to document and report on everything you do, but it should be clear to the customer that what you’re doing is outside the normal scope of the working relationship. Giving your customer early access to a new product or feature is an example of this.
Conclusion
Loyalty marketing is critical for building long-term relationships with customers who spend more money with you. With loyalty scheme members generating 12 to 18% more revenue per year than the average guest shopper, it’s no surprise that loyalty marketing is so popular among brands.
Frequently Asked Questions: -
Building brand loyalty is what propels growth. Customers who become 'brand loyal' after purchasing your products will become repeat customers. They will, however, recommend you to their peers and act as ambassadors for your products in the real world.
Existing customers are much easier to sell to, brand loyalty increases the likelihood that an existing customer will try a new product; in fact, you're 60-70% more likely to sell to an existing customer than a new prospect.
Brand loyalty is not extinct. In fact, it is simply evolving, but it is more relevant than ever. The most significant change is that brand loyalty messaging is increasingly being generated by customers. Social media, reviews, and word-of-mouth can either help or hurt your brand.
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Top Sales Promotion Trends To Emerge Post Coronavirus
Any form of promotion during Covid is quite a sensitive matter. There is a very fine line between notifying your customers and annoying them. If you are planning to get in touch with your customers, then you must know that by the time your communication reaches them they must be already annoyed to the core with hundreds of emails lying unopened in their mailboxes with subjects on Covid.
So before you initiate the promotions, you might want to check out the sales promotions trends that would emerge during this pandemic.
The language of all the promotional communication ought to be sensitive and empathic. If the customers find you lacking compassion they won’t bother to engage, let alone buy your brand. Maintaining that human touch during campaigns has become more important now than ever. When informing your customers about your processes and policies during Covid, brands need to show that they are being responsible.
Creativity and joyful communication is going to play a big role during sales promotion campaigns.
With customers getting bored, locked in their houses, brands can make use of this opportunity by spreading some joy among their customers with the help of creative and engaging campaigns. This will not just help in better and easier conversions but also give a good brand recall value.
With most of the media houses and studios shut, use of social media influencers would be a great idea at this point in time. According to a survey conducted by Hammer Kopf Consumer Surveys, amid the lockdown, in India, there has been 87% increase in social media usage. Brands should utilize this trend and hire relevant and authentic influencers for the sales promotion campaigns.
Offer discounts and promotions.
BOGO (Buy one Get one) is here to stay. The purchasing power of the consumers has been immensely affected. Also it has been observed that the consumers who can afford to buy are delaying purchases. A slashed price would motivate the consumers to make the purchase without further procrastination. Along with price cuts, there can be all forms of BOGO offers.
Free samples of products or online trials of services is a great way to launch a new brand during Covid. When giving out samples, make sure that the consumers know about the safety policies that your brand is following like contactless deliveries, best practices of hygiene and so on.
Offer discounts and promotions.
BOGO (Buy one Get one) is here to stay. The purchasing power of the consumers has been immensely affected. Also it has been observed that the consumers who can afford to buy are delaying purchases. A slashed price would motivate the consumers to make the purchase without further procrastination. Along with price cuts, there can be all forms of BOGO offers.
Free samples of products or online trials of services is a great way to launch a new brand during Covid. When giving out samples, make sure that the consumers know about the safety policies that your brand is following like contactless deliveries, best practices of hygiene and so on.
Apply Targeted Promotions.
Something that your consumer needed earlier may not be required now. It is important to understand their needs and accordingly craft the promotion strategies. According to a Harvard Business study, regardless of which group consumers belong to, they prioritize consumption by sorting products and services into four categories:
- Essentials: are necessary for survival or perceived as central to well-being.
- Treats: are indulgences whose immediate purchase is considered justifiable.
- Postponables: are needed or desired items whose purchase can be reasonably put off.
- Expendables: are perceived as unnecessary or unjustifiable.
It is important for brands to classify their products or service and bundle it appropriately to have a successful campaign with a desired outcome. For example: Bundling an essential item with a treat can become quite a desired combination for a customer.
Giving out ‘At-Home reward’ coupons or gift vouchers is another unique way of sales promotion during this pandemic. Now that everybody is at home, brands should switch to rewards that can be redeemed at home, online. For example, they can give away reward coupons for online streaming channels, food delivery apps, online learning platforms, fitness apps, e-commerce websites and so on.
RewardPort specializes in loyalty marketing programs, corporate loyalty card, dealer incentive programs, dealer loyalty, channel incentive, distributor incentive program, B2B loyalty programs, customer loyalty cards & marketing partner programs. Get a free consultation today.
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Great sales promotion ideas to win New Customers
Nurturing relationships with the customers is a significant aspect to shape a brand. Sales promotion strategies can do wonders for your brand through retention and engagement. Sales promotion is the process of persuading a potential customer to engage with the brand and eventually buy the product or service. A good sale promotion strategy can be effective at achieving a quick boost in sales but this “boost in sales” is mostly short-term. Many customers come back expecting or anticipating further promotions which is why brands have to continue coming up with different strategies to comply with the market behavior.
Here are some sales promotion ideas to make your campaigns successful:
Give away rewards
A compelling way to engage with consumers and motivate them to keep coming back to you is by giving them rewards. Offering the customers free credits or coupons on their next purchase is the perfect way to make them come back. It helps in increasing sales and also in improving the bottom line of your brand. So having a reward program in your sales promotion strategy is significant.
Personalize your brand
If your company is a massive faceless corporation, there’s a high chance that the customers would shy away from your brand. Giving a friendly face to your brand can help people connect to your product or service. It’s important for businesses to introduce themselves and share their story with the people. This is a simple yet effective technique to stand out and engage with the audience. Give your brand a voice, tell your story, add a character to your business if you can.
Create an urgency
Driving a ‘flash sale’ promotion is a great way to create urgency among the people and make them buy a product or a service, sooner rather than later. You can start with a teaser of the promotion and let people know about the upcoming sales. And when the timing is right, release your flash sales promotion.
Upgrade instead of price cuts
Upgrading your product is a better way to keeping your sales up rather than cutting down the prices. Giving some extra service or a product on the same price can appeal to potential consumers in a better way.
Momentum, scarcity, and credibility
Creating a momentum or anxiety before the sale, then making sure that in the middle of the sale the promotion becomes scarce, and ending the sale promotion at the promised time. These three things are very significant. Ending the promotion at the given time gives something for people to regret.
Free trials
Free trials are popular at attracting attention. Let’s take an example of Netflix and other streaming services who give out 1-month free trial before the customer has to pay. This one-month free trial creates addiction in the free trial period and when that addiction is taken away, the consumer is forced to pay for the service.
Videos
Using videos to make product demonstration is a very effective way to attract consumers. Offering special discounts and other offers in your video will also get your customers excited to make a purchase
Use social media
Using social media to give out coupons and discounts which are only applicable through social media is another way of engaging customers.
Volume discounts
Offering volume discounts is a great way of encouraging individuals and businesses to purchase goods in multiple units or in large quantities. Shoppers love volume discounts, so we often find business owners offering them to encourage sales.
Follow leads
Track your customers from the first contact to sale within the sales pipeline. Send and track emails, and alerts to help follow up with potential clients.
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A sales promotion checklist: Do’s and don’t for running a successful campaign.
If you are looking to amplify the product sales for your brand, it calls for a structured sales promotion campaign. Many businesses in the market are always looking forward to attracting their old and new customers in different ways to promote their products. At the same time increase profits for their business. From a customer’s point of view, it is about finding, analysing something new in the market and the benefits it brings them in the long run. Their ultimate aim is to feel satisfied with their purchase. There should be a value owned for their money. A brand can gain a lot when it is able to pull off a successful sales campaign. But there are many hiccups in the process and that’s when it fails.
First, let’s find out the Dos of running a successful sales promotion campaign. And then move on to the Don’ts which will be the crucial steps for implementing the campaign.
Do’s:
- Set an objective for your sales promotion campaign. It could be a short or long term objective. You should be able to state, measure and analyze the goals set
- It is important to know your target market. Ask this question to yourself. Will the sales promotion appeal to the target group? Each group comes up with its unique behavioural action. Their needs and tastes are different from one another. Find out the right type of sales promotional campaign that suits your target audience
- Work on the type of messaging, voice, offer content appeal, format and duration. Brainstorm with your team to extract a lot of ideas. You can execute it better if you have a solid plan in place
- Examine and evaluate your promotional budget. The process involves knowing the cost breakdown, expenditures and balances. Allocate the funds to determine the profit margin
While designing a sales promotional campaign for your brand, including a sense of scarcity as and when you know the time is right. This situation of urgency can increase the demand and value for your products.
The Dont’s:
- Understand your customers. A lot of factors influence a buyer’s purchasing decision. There are many reasons behind their approval and disapproval of your product when they purchase. Do not include actions that will affect your plan in the future
- There is an overload of information in the digital age. Your customers read many online reviews which may impact the sales. Do not assume that the influential message on the sales campaign will run on a smooth road. Keep a sharp eye on customer feedback and the message that is being circulated on social media
- Make sure that your campaign is not hard to follow. Include a simple set of an action plan with workable backup programs
- Avoid stress and confusion. Find the loopholes from the current campaign and work on the solutions
Finally, evaluate the performance of your campaign – understand and summarize the key learnings. Find out whether your campaign met its objectives. Learn from the summary and use the information to design new campaigns in the future.
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Digital Sales promotions Ideas & trends 2019
The most crucial way of reaching out to the target audience for any brand or company is through advertising and promotions. Every company relies on promotional techniques of various kinds for the success of their services or products and marketing via digital media has become the most effective and efficient means of promotion for brands at this point of time. As buyers are frequently distrusting of advertising and marketing strategies, it has become all the more critical for brands to penetrate into their target audience.
The audience to which advertisements and commercials are directed to have become more aware of matters and inquisitive as well, which has further pushed the companies and brands to constantly keep creating and innovating in order to stay at pace with the fast-growing consumers whose taste change at a rapid pace.
We’ve curated a list of trends and ideas that are employed for digital sales promotion by different companies. These are trends and ideas that are likely to appear or have already helped brands in promoting their products and services:
1. Authentic and Real Content
It has become imperative to go in the path that supports and projects only authentic and real content. Consumers are no longer hooked onto things that appear pre-concocted, lack reality or are “clickbait” content. The more raw and real you keep your advertising or promotions, the easier it is likely to get through to your target audience. Influencer marketing is one of the trendiest ways to gather people’s attention towards a certain product or brand. The element of “human trust” adds to the brand value and a real testimony helps them connect to the brand better than a highly edited video made for the purpose of selling. The idea is to sell an emotion through pointing out to subsequent aspects of the product one wants to sell. This indirect approach seems to be working for several brands already and is set to be one of the biggest trends of 2019!
2. Interactive Ads
Ads that do not sell products, sell the most number of products! The logic is strange but in reality, the lesser descriptive your promotion is, the higher the attention your audience would pay. Ads in the forms of interactive videos where the protagonist of the ad talks directly to you cause customers to believe that they are being made to be a part of the scenario. Ads that require customer responses or are in the form of a poll helps increase the interest and engagement of the audience resulting in a better sales scenario.
3. Voice Search is the thing!
With automated voice search devices such as Alexa and Google Assistant, people have become all the more dependent on these applications and gadgets to help them do tasks. The ability to make a device such as a phone or a tablet recognize and respond to your voice and help you with your browsing is incredible and can help marketers reach out to their audience by sectioning or categorizing them into specific keywords so that their ads appear on the top when a person voice searches for a product or service.
4. World of Social Media
A person’s presence is felt when they are doing things in different places and their information travels in the form of word-of-mouth and that’s exactly how brands aim to reach out to more and more audiences. They are keen on penetrating into the different outlets of social media based on their type of goods or services and after analyzing what is best for their brand image. Social media can help you brand become visible and highly approachable as it allows you to spread out and cater to different audiences based on which platform you use. Live streaming, contests, quizzes, giveaways, they’re all strategies to amplify your sales through digital media. For you, the choices are endless as you can promote your products and create brand loyalty on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn and several other platforms!
5. Visual Search
We all know that artificial intelligence and machine-learning is speeding up most technological processes with each day and brands and companies just have to hop onto that wagon to stay at pace with the fast evolving consumers! Visual search is helpful and is likely to boom in the coming years as it is the basic concept of converting visual information into text-based data. This will not only help marketers make their products more visible but also help people learn about different and new brands through the process.
Consumers and brands are always changing and all of it happens in tandem with the scientific advancements made by researchers. An amalgamation of technology, digital marketing ideas and brand positioning, sales of any goods and services is imperative! These trends and ideas are just a few ways of enhancing the sales promotion through the new media but there are plenty other interesting ways in which, brands and advertisers can make better sales!
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Festive Sales Promotion Ideas across the World
Businesses today need to re-imagine their online marketing efforts when going overseas. The marketing efforts can’t achieve a heightened success unless the sales promotion strategy is grounded within the dynamics of the geographic area. This technique is commonly known as Geo-targeting. There are varied festivals celebrated by the people across the world. A sound sales strategy incorporating the cultural differences serves as an underpinning for the effective online sales promotion efforts.
Sales promotion ideas:
Add festive touch to your online campaign
Firms need to create magic and nostalgia around their sales campaign which will evoke a sense of joy & warmth in the minds of the buyers in the region where the festival is celebrated. The graphics should speak of the festivals and the spirit of it. This will have a magnetic effect on the buyers and they will instantly connect with your brand.
Email marketing
The email marketing is undoubtedly the best and a must tool to be utilized during festive season. Offer product discounts to new customers and rewards to your old customers to get maximum reach and engagement. This is one tool which can generate good figures of converted customers. Ensure you are creative with your email captions.
Campaign timeline
The offer should run throughout the festive season for instance the Christmas week should offer highly-targeted campaigns across the week preceding the festival day. This will keep a constant interest about the offers and increase the awareness levels about offered products or services to engage greater number of new customers.
Create a sense of urgency
Online advertisements have to be smartly designed keeping in view the duration of the festival. A call of action needs to be planted using words which limit the duration of the offer. This will urge the people to grab their hands on the discounts at the earliest and avail themselves of the offer.
Remarketing
Customers can be found be in multiple phases of the marketing funnel. Hand – holding the customers and guiding them through this marketing funnel along every step can be successfully achieved by remarketing technique. For instance, for any incomplete purchase, a reminder greatly helps to convert the potential lead to a buyer. Remarketing is definitely yet another successful sales promotion strategy.
Language customization
It is a no brainer that the online message needs to be customized for its language to reach effectively across the different geographical locations. And the catchy phrases used in either online adverts or the landing pages should reflect the sentiments of the locals.
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Top benefits of customer retention
‘Customer Retention’ or ‘Customer Acquisition’, these are the two conflicting ideas marketers face when deciding what is more important. And with so much importance given to ROI, marketers overlook the reason of just why are they in business- that is to serve the customers. Old school marketers used a multichannel wide net marketing strategy to reach out to more number of prospects, however much like the definition of this strategy has changed, so has this mindset developed. Multichannel marketers now see that it’s about using different touchpoints to interact with customers and create a more personalized experience.
As alluring as customer acquisition may seem, the truth is that it is important to invest time, effort and resources in maintaining a relationship once the customers are on board. Customer loyalty and brand loyalty initiatives facilitate companies to retain customers, beginning from the first contact one has with the company and endures throughout the period of the relationship.
In this article, we’ll make the case for customer retention and explain why it deserves the same amount of focus as acquiring new ones:
Low Marketing Cost
Acquiring new customers requires a lot of resources, efforts, and expenses. By focusing the marketing strategies on existing customers, customers who show a demonstrable interest in the product and the willingness to buy increases the chances of converting them and making a sale. This not only significantly reduces the ad spend but also is a chance to showcase the brand’s commitment to rewarding the customer’s loyalty.
Loyal Customers Boost Sales
Loyal customers have a relationship with the company and trust the brand more than new customers do. Since a current customer has been with the brand for some time and has experienced the product or service first-hand, they’re more likely to upgrade or make a repeat purchase. Also, loyal customers are better at word of mouth and so your customer acquisition costs decrease.
Improve Brand Image
Brand Image is the customer’s interpretation of the product and services of a brand. A positive brand image helps businesses acquire new customers, cross-sell and upsell and reduces marketing cost. One of the best things about customer retention is that the brand gets an idea of who the customers are, what they want and the data collected facilitates in creating personalized and targeted promotions to maximize chances of success. It’s impossible to overstate the vitality of a brand profile, as prospects connect with it directly and build a relationship.
Retention equals acquisition
A price cannot be put on customer loyalty and can even result in the further acquisition of customers for the brand. Word of mouth or WOM is not only a free advertising tool but possibly one of the most credible forms of advertising. It’s a fact, that customers will talk and prospects will listen. Happy customers will give positive referrals will which in turn increase the profitability of the company. Acquisition can also be increased through retention by giving incentives to existing customers when they refer the brand to family, friends, and acquaintances.
In today’s competitive market, it is really difficult to differentiate your brand from its competitors. Arguably the most important driver of a company’s good health is customer satisfaction and retention. A loyal and satisfied customer is more important than one who is not. While closing new business might be exhilarating, your company won’t truly advance and grow without retaining your current customers as well. The bottom line is to not lose sight of the existing customers in pursuit of new ones and it’ll definitely pay off.
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How Sales Psychology can Enhance your Marketing Plan
Why do humans make purchasing decisions? What motivates or persuades them to purchase? These are questions that every marketing person should ask and understand why people think and act the way they do. Before one jumps to the nitty- gritty of marketing tactics, it is important to understand the psychology of selling a product.
It’s as simple as it sounds. All humans have possible points that drive certain actions and are called triggers. Eight out of ten buying decisions people make are based on emotions. So with just 20 per cent of these decisions devoted to pure logic, it only makes sense for marketers to know the psychological factors that sway people toward a specific brand or product.
Read on for takeaways based on psychology and triggers that can help you shape your marketing strategy:
1. Reciprocity:
The principle of reciprocity implies that when somebody gives us something we feel obligated to return the favour. In marketing and sales this means that you give prospects something that is valuable, and they’ll naturally feel like doing something in return. This ‘something’ that you offer can be alongside the purchase a prospect has made.
To effectively use reciprocity, you must be the first one to give the valuable to enhance the experience, the gift should be personalized and unexpected. Can be anything from free merchandise to professional content in terms of advices. Providing excellent customer service, great advice, and an exceptional product will make a customer more than willing to provide a testimonial in the form of positive reviews or referrals.
2. Commitment and Consistency:
Every phase of the decision-making process is a chance to deliver a valuable message that will acknowledge what’s important to the company’s values and that of the individuals purchasing the product. This can be achieved by incorporating value selling principles into targeted marketing campaigns that are supported by well designed, researched and meaningful data. Another key component is to solidify your brand image by being consistent in your messaging and provide great content which helps prospects achieve their goals.
3. Liking:
The principle of liking implies that people are more likely to be influenced by businesses and individuals they like and feel a connection with. The primary factors that play a role in influencing prospects are by establishing a common ground with them and being cooperative.
Different brands have seen to achieve liking by using celebrities to endorse brands, as people will transfer their fondness for the celebrity to the product the celebrity is endorsing. By sharing with prospects the brand story in the ‘About Us’ page and humanizing the entire brand which appeals to the emotions of individuals will help trigger liking.
4. Scarcity:
The principle of scarcity states that the fear of missing something can be a very imperative motivator. Whether the scarcity is real or just a perception, products seem to be more enticing when the availability is shown rather limited. Human behavior is such that, consumers are likely to purchase something if they informed that it’s their last opportunity to buy it. The fear of missing out an opportunity, offer, and product before it’s gone increases the chance that’ll purchase it in order to avoid losing out something.
5. Authority:
Individuals are more likely to listen and trust in individuals who are experts in their fields and are in a superior position, according to the theory of authority. People in a powerful position and who are industry experts in subject matter are often considered as industry experts. People are hard-wired to look up to authoritative figures to help them in their decision making process without question because it is assumed that they know the best.
Part of principle authority also involves developing credibility and admitting to the fact that you don’t know something. This not only makes the prospect believe that you are telling the truth but gives you time to research and give a knowledgeable reply.
6. Social Proof:
The social proof theory states that humans are social beings and when individuals are uncertain if they are supposed to behave or act, they will look to other individuals to imitate what they are doing and determine what they should do. By demonstrating that your product and company is trusted and popular with other people, Social proof can be applied to sales and marketing. They are more likely to follow suit if they catch sight of what is right through reference to what other people think is correct.
Psychology is not a magic trick that can force people to act the way you expect and want them to. By understanding these principles correctly and applying them in your strategies and marketing plan can persuade and influence potential and present customers to trust your product/brand and boost your sales.
Got a Marketing Challenge at Hand?
How to get rid of your excess inventory from retail shelves?
Available statistic shows that about 20 to 40% of most business’ capital is tied up in inventory. This portends that any business that mismanages its inventory levels even to a small degree can have a huge challenge on their hands. It can affect their capacity to operate effectively and it can place a huge burden on the Company’s finances. The more inventory any business holds the higher the likelihood of running into costly issues such as tampering, theft, damage and stock excesses, obsolescence and so much more. Also, excess inventory on retail shelves can keep you at the mercy of market fluctuations in commodity value.
Here are things you can do to get rid of excess inventory from retail shelves:
Flow with the Market
When the market value of a good dips significantly below what you paid when you were acquiring them, keeping hold of a sizeable quantity of those goods can affect your business. As any effective inventory manager will admit, there is no way to completely insulate yourself from overstock. However, you can run with a plan that helps you reduce your inventory to optimum levels. This would also aid the financial state of your business and position you for other great prospects.
The major goal of controlling your inventory level is to ensure you have enough to match the fluctuations in customer demand. You do not need to tie your cash in maintaining unnecessary stock. You can reduce inventory by communicating effectively down the supply chain. The engagements at each stage must be in sync and data driven. This will ensure that goods reach your customers without interruption while the safety stock requirements will be kept to a minimum. Some organizations use inventory management software to fulfill this role. Every process manager across the distribution channel is can be properly positioned to work with up to date data which creates effectiveness.
Get rid of surplus or obsolete inventory
Inventory management software can help a business to identify obsolete or surplus inventory. It is important to earmark the most effective way of taking out obsolete inventory. The long term damage of holding in unnecessary stock outweighs the damage of holding on to it in the short term. There are a number of channels which businesses can use to dispose unwanted inventory. The first thing to do is to categorize the stock that needs to be scrapped or thrown away, those that can be sold off and the stock that can be used within the organization.
You can also negotiate the option of returning surplus stock to the supplier. Closeout and special discount offers is a good avenue to increase customer demand and move excess inventory. Goods which are sold at a discount in an International market allow the retailer to get back part of his investment while moving the stock. As a last resort, it may be vital to give the goods to a cause or charity which will create some goodwill in the community or you can simply scrap them.
It is important for a business to invest in running with a good inventory management system. This would help to reduce the challenges in your supply chain while improving your profit margins.