Five Marketing and PR Tactics That Will Improve Sales

[Monirul Islam]

Many vital departments actively support sales – helping drive customers into your doors. These include your sales department (of course) as well as marketing and PR.

Excellent sales numbers are not dependent upon your sales team alone. Marketing and public relations work with sales to create buzz and bring more customers into the mix. They can also be used to assist with customer retention or for upselling of existing customers.

Five Ways Your Marketing and PR Departments Can Boost Sales
There are many ways in which your marketing and PR departments can bring in more sales. Some methods are reliable, and some are hit and miss. Here are five proven tactics your business can begin to use today:

Offer a discount – and market it well

Some businesses are loath to offer a discount. There are many reasons for this, with the most obvious being lost potential income from due to a lower sales price. However, if you are pricing your product or service correctly, your income should not be imperiled by a sale.

Another factor to think about is whether the discounted amount will support the marketing needed to make the sale a success. The point of any sale is to attract new customers, which means your marketing department will need a promotional plan that draws the attention of an untapped market.

Ultimately, most discounts that are well thought-out and marketed can bring in a stream of new customers and provide your business with a sales boost.

Get customers to help you donate to a cause

One of our team members recently signed up to get a box of clothing sent to her each month. She could try on and pick out the pieces she wanted and then send anything she didn't like back. When she received the box, she was told that buying all of the clothes would mean the company could donate an outfit to a child in need. Not only did this make her a co-donator to a worthy cause, but she was also inspired to purchase the whole box and keep a piece that she was on the fence about.

This type of charitable promotion is a great sales tactic and PR move. It allows your customers to become part of your passion – and provides your business with the ability to donate more to causes than you may have been able to do on your own.

Finally, millennials, who are currently the second largest generation after baby boomers, are more likely to buy from and work for companies that give to charity. So, you are likely to attract like-minded customers and employees by being charitable.

Garner word of mouth

Getting word of mouth is one of those tricky things that every company is hoping to do. There are various ways to create an environment in which excellent word of mouth is possible. For example: providing great products/services and wonderful customer service will generally give you customers who are happy to write a good review.

However, studies show that people are more likely to leave a bad review when angry than a good review when satisfied. So, how does a business go about building an excellent reputation?

The long and the short of it is that one must ask for those great reviews. That can feel awkward, but when it's folded into the overall experience, it becomes like second nature. Here are a few ways you can make sure your employees ask for excellent reviews every time a customer has a great experience:

If your company has a brick and mortar storefront, put out customer comment cards for clients to fill out. You can also create a "review station" with an iPad or computer at the front desk on which customers can immediately rate and review your services.
Create a script in which your employees ask customers to rate or review the company on a specific platform. That could be Google, Yelp, Facebook, Angie's List, or anywhere else that is appropriate.
Have an automated review request pop up on the "thank you for purchasing" page of your website or send out an automated email once the client has received your product.
Email or call longtime customers and ask them to review your business on a specific platform. If this is done through email, be sure to provide them with a link.
Advertise where your target demographics congregate

Many marketing professionals get excited about all of the new and interesting places where they can purchase advertisements. You can place ads on social media, in apps, on podcasts, and just about anywhere else. You can blow ten years worth of marketing dollars on ads in one fell swoop. The actual determination of where to place an ad is not where it's possible to place an ad, but where your potential clients are most likely to be.

Before running ads, be sure to thoroughly identify the places where your target audience congregate and then use every method in your power to get the word out about your products and services in those locations.

Take advantage of a slow news day

Your local paper and industry magazines want to hear from you. Reporters depend upon businesses to provide them with industry-related stories through press releases, outreach emails, interview requests, and more. If you want to get a free boost from your local or industry news sources, reach out to them and offer an interview with the CEO, a behind-the-scenes look at production, or invite them to an open house. If you have an announcement about which you'd like the world to know, send a press release to everyone who can publish it.

The only way good news about your company will reach the press is if you inform them. So, be sure to do so!

Are you hoping to increase sales for your business? Contact Business Success Consulting Group for a free evaluation of your sales process.

Source: Business Success