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Do Face to Face Sales and Marketing Strategies Have a Place in the Digital World?
The digital world allows us to market directly to our audience around the clock. Potential customers can peruse our websites, chat to us via the telephone or email us with questions directly. This is time and cost effective for us as businesses and naturally it forms an important part of our marketing arsenal.
However, marketing is at heart all about building relationships and engendering trust in those who are considering purchasing from us. Therefore face-to-face sales and marketing still have a part to play and they can bolster our online campaigns rather than taking anything away from them.
Business Expo
One of the most powerful ways you can market face to face is by your presence at a business expo. This allows you to exhibit the key strengths of your business; to advertise what you offer in terms of your products or services; and to network both with potential clients and with other businesses.
It is important that your stand is professional at these events and that your signage shows what your business is about. One of the easiest ways to do this is through the use of a roller banner. These are highly portable but give you enough space to advertise and to make your company stand out from the crowd.
Speaking at an Event
Another way to convey the value of your business, without having to apply hard-sell techniques, is to be a keynote speaker at an event related to your industry. This allows you to tell people about your company. However, more importantly it allows people to see you ‘live’ and if your presentation is good it should help to build trust and make your name memorable.
Client Meetings
Client meetings are the way most sales and marketing professionals come face to face with their potential customers. If you want to create a good impression at these there are key factors to consider.
- Research: You should make sure you research both the company and the person, or people, you are meeting with. LinkedIn is the perfect vehicle for this. Adequate research allows you to communicate better as you will understand more about the person’s background and it will also give you a feel for whether they are the final decision maker or the gatekeeper.
- Control the Agenda: If possible be the one to set the agenda and then allow time at the end for their questions. If you are going to use a visual presentation try to tailor it to the needs of the business concerned, rather than putting together something generic which could leave you open to questions about fit.
- Ask Questions: By being the one to ask the client if there is anything they are particularly struggling with in their business, it can help you to tailor your sales pitch so that your service or product ends up being the solution they need.
- Prepare for Objections: At any client meeting you are bound to be met with some objections about why your services or products might not be a good fit for the client concerned. Try to prepare rebuttals to these ahead of time as you will probably have run into some of the concerns before with other customers.
Once relationships have been built, it is imperative to maintain them to ensure continuation of business. Most people choose to do this via email, which can result in the personal connection that built the relationship being lost. With the fast pace of today’s business world, it can be hard to arrange regular face to face meetings, which is why it is important to speak regularly over the phone to cement a relationship. This is where a business owner can combine traditional, face to face methods with modern, digital methods of communication. One example of this is using VoIP to communicate with clients and customers. It allows for reliable communication and can help to reduce business costs.
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