Monday, February 28, 2011

Advertising

In this article I am sharing my views all about advertising. Advertising is required to take the product to the market and to get the attention of the customers. For example: New product launches that means if you are launching a new product then you can go for advertising so as to reach the target market. The advertising process starts with creating an advertising brief where advertising brief is a document confirming understanding between you and an an advertising agency on objectives of an advertising campaign, identification of the target market, strategies to be adopted in reaching the market, the time frame of the campaign and its total estimated cost.

The next step is to do the market research about your competition. You need to think on what needs to be communicated and what are the unique selling points for your product or service.

Once you have understood the market and you have all your research done you can start your advertising campaign.

Here I am listing down some of the key points that helps in successful advertising:
1. You should always think like your customers.
2. Doing research for what customer likes and dislikes.
3. The whole idea of the advertisement should catch the attention of the customers.
4. The advertisement should have a customer focus.

The benefit of the advertising is in increased product sales and to give informative knowledge i.e. to introduce the new product and how it is different from other products.








Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Exhibition Planning

In this article I am writing about how to plan exhibitions effectively. Exhibition planning needs a marketing plan including pre-show, at-show and follow-up plan which I will discuss one by one.

Pre-show Planning
1. Assembling a team of people who have the necessary skills and experience.
2. Exhibition budget should be prepared.
3. Research about the exhibition and about the organizers before deciding to get registered. Check the past exhibitors list to get an idea of what kind of companies have previously participated in this.
4. Register in the exhibition in which you want to participate.
5. The next step is to get the information about the floor plan of the exhibition and the costs associated with it. 
6. Discuss with your managing team and decide about the exhibition space you want for your exhibition stall. Identify what kind of space best suits your sales/product placement.
7. Reserve the space that best suits your requirement.
8. Send email to the prospective customers and existing customers telling them about your participation in the exhibition.

At-show Planning
1. Carry a visitor book to record the information about the visitors and the important information that you can use for post show follow-up.
2. Laptop is needed at the time of exhibition for showing any demonstration or presentation.
3. Carry your visiting Cards to exchange with the people visiting your stall.
4. Develop a presentation in an auto run mode that means the presentation plays in loop so that you don't have to play the presentation all over again each and every time.
5. Company brochures are required in the exhibition to give to the people visiting your stall.
6. Last but not the least keep a visiting cards bowl at your stall so that the visitors can drop their visiting cards in it.

Follow-up planning
1. Create a database of leads generated through this exhibition.
2. Send the thank you email to all the visitors for visiting your stall in the exhibition. This is done to get the direct response from the recipient.
3. Wait for the response and call the prospects next day to follow-up on any requirement or as discussed at the exhibition.
4. Do the continuous follow-up to get more responses.


I hope this helps, please leave comments if you have any questions or thoughts on this.
















Thursday, February 17, 2011

Lead Generation Techniques

Lead generation means creating prospective customer interest in your products or services. Lead generation can be done through various ways as listed below:

Exhibitions - Leads can be generated by participating in exhibitions and making a list of companies and people who all have visited your stall. After the exhibition send all the visitors a thank you mail for visiting your stall in the exhibition. This helps in reaching the right companies and the people who might be interested in your products and services.

Cold calling - Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective customers generally through telephone, people who were not expecting such an interaction.

Direct Mail - Direct emailing also proves very effective if the email is sent to the right person or to the decision maker. Direct mail is generally used to generate a direct response from the recipient.

Channel partners - Channel partners market or sell the manufacturers products or services.

Advertising - Advertising means bringing a product or service to the attention of prospective customers and current customers.


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Email Writing Tips

Here I am focusing on tips for writing professional emails. Writing efficient and effective email is always useful in terms of productivity and responsiveness. You should keep the following points in mind while writing emails.

1. The subject line should be meaningful because the recipient gets an idea about the email from the subject line. That means subject line should convey the message clearly to the recipient. Also the recipient might be receiving lot of emails and decides after seeing the subject line whether to reply, forward, delete the email. Never leave the subject line blank.

2. Use an appropriate greeting in the email. Address the email to only one person. If you want to include more people then you can use cc or bcc in the email.

3. The body of the email should not be very long. The email should be short with easy to understand sentences.

4. Before sending the email always do the spell check to avoid any kind of mistakes in the email.

5. Font and formatting also matters while writing email. Font used should be easy to understand.

6. Emails should be personalized as it creates more impact on the recipient.

7. The closing lines of the email should make it clear whether a reply is necessary or not.
















Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Sales Skills

In this article I am focusing on skills required for successful sales or in other words closing a sales deal. Before getting in touch with the prospect you should have prerequisite knowledge.You should have technical, product, customer, competitors and market knowledge.You can visit the customer's website for more information about the customer.

Selling requires good communication and listening skills. Each and every person in the sales team should speak a common selling language. When you contact the prospect first time try to find out the decision maker for that particular product or domain. Once you have identified the decision maker you can reach the person directly. Selling is a step by step process in which first you will have to identify the needs and problems of the prospect. Once you have understood their problems try to convince the prospect about the benefits of the product and how your product can help them to overcome the problems they are facing.

While giving the presentation include the similar kind of case studies. In simple words tell the prospect how your customers have been benefited using the same product. This helps in building the confidence of the prospect as you all know "Seeing is believing".

During the presentation demonstrate about the ROI (Return On Investment) and the ROI time period. Also ask quality questions to fully determine their situation and buying needs. Try to find out when they are planning to buy because some people show interest just to know the pricing. Customer testimonials can be used to support the price objection. Send the proposal to only well qualified prospects where there is high chance of closing the deal.

To initiate further discussion tell the prospect about the action plan or ask the prospect how would they like to take the discussion forward.

















 

Friday, February 4, 2011

Cold Calling Techniques

Cold Calling means calling a prospect who doesn't know the caller for a sales appointment. That means the object of a cold call is to set an appointment. Cold Calling can prove very effective if it is done properly. The important thing to remember here is to do some research about your prospect before making a call. You can go through their website to know more about the company e.g. company size, nature of products and services, decision maker of the company etc. The last but not the least you should be very clear about your products and services.

According to my experience Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to contact new leads. The best time to call prospects can be early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

Once you have done all your homework and now you are ready to do cold calling, always greet the person first 'Goodmorning' or 'Goodafternoon' and introduce yourself. Tell the prospect about your company and about the reason of your call. Ask for an appointment for a web meeting or face to face meeting.

It's not necessary that in the first attempt only you will get the appointment. So be prepared there is a chance that you might hear a 'No' also. Try to find out if there is a need for the product and service which you are providing.

Record the status of the call in your prospect list. This will be helpful for the second call.


















Thursday, February 3, 2011

How to search email address?

I am sure you will agree that searching email addresses for the database you have generated for marketing purpose is sometimes difficult. There are some easy techniques which I am listing down below point wise to help you save your time.

1. Search email address by person name - This is the first technique where you can search email address when you just know the person's name. The format is as shown below:

Person Name email address


For example: If you are searching for email address of John Caro. Then in this case the format should be:
John Caro email address


2. Search email address by company name - In this particular situation you just know the company name. Now you need the top contacts of the company whom you would like to send the marketing emails. You can search the top contact names on the Imprint page of the company website. If you get the person name from the website then you can find the email address by the first technique as shown above.

But all companies don't have the Imprint page on their websites. Here you will have to search the person name first and then email address later on. The format for searching the top contacts should be:

Company Name + CEO
Company Name + Director
And so on..

The important thing to notice here is that you have to leave one blank space before ‘+’ sign and after ‘+’ sign.

I hope this helps, please leave comments if you have any questions or thoughts on this.