3 Essential Marketing Strategies for Increasing Sales.
Marketing’s job is to help increase sales. That’s all. I’ve said this so many times & lived it so long, it surprises me to run across people who don’t get it. Understanding – and remembering – this admittedly simple concept can make a huge difference in the success of your marketing investment. And, of course, in your revenue.
There are three ways you can use marketing to increase revenue.
1.Increase traffic or leads.
2.Improve conversion rates.
3.Add products or services.
When you invest marketing dollars in traffic or lead generation your objective is to add more people to your marketing system by driving them to your website, capturing their contact information and permission to begin a marketing relationship, or – in some lucky cases – connecting them to a sales person.
Traffic and lead generation are where most technology companies tend to focus their marketing. This includes tactics such as pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, syndicating white papers, direct mail, email, telemarketing, trade shows & referral programs.
Traffic and leads are good, but what happens next is possibly even more important.
Conversion rates refer to how well you get people to do what you want them to do once they are in your marketing system. In a business technology purchase, there are many (sometimes MANY) conversion points where prospects decide whether to continue engaging with you or to bail. Improving conversion rates is often the easiest and least expensive way to increase sales opportunities – or sales – fast.
Conversion rate improvement can be as simple as directing pay-per-click traffic to a specialized landing page instead of to your home page. It can also be a more complex effort such as thoroughly understanding your customers – their needs, decision making style and buying process – and taking the time to make sure their questions are answered before they have to ask them.
Adding products or services is pretty obvious. The more need-filling products or services you have to offer to a customer, the higher your revenue. This is not my main area of expertise, so I’ll say no more.
So, there you have it. Your marketing efforts should be focused on either a) increasing traffic or leads, b) converting inbound traffic to sales or sales opportunities, or c) developing new products and services to offer to your customers.
Any of these will increase your sales, but none will do it alone.
Technorati Tags: technology marketing, conversion, traffic, sales
This article was first published  January 22, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog
Marketing’s job is to help increase sales. That’s all. I’ve said this so many times & lived it so long, it surprises me to run across people who don’t get it. Understanding – and remembering – this admittedly simple concept can make a huge difference in the success of your marketing investment. And, of course, in your revenue.
There are three ways you can use marketing to increase revenue.
- Increase traffic or leads.
- Improve conversion rates.
- Add products or services.
When you invest marketing dollars in traffic or lead generation your objective is to add more people to your marketing system by driving them to your website, capturing their contact information and permission to begin a marketing relationship, or – in some lucky cases – connecting them to a sales person.
Traffic and lead generation are where most technology companies tend to focus their marketing. This includes tactics such as pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, syndicating white papers, direct mail, email, telemarketing, trade shows & referral programs.
Traffic and leads are good, but what happens next is possibly even more important.
Conversion rates refer to how well you get people to do what you want them to do once they are in your marketing system. In a business technology purchase, there are many (sometimes MANY) conversion points where prospects decide whether to continue engaging with you or to bail. Improving conversion rates is often the easiest and least expensive way to increase sales opportunities – or sales – fast.
Conversion rate improvement can be as simple as directing pay-per-click traffic to a specialized landing page instead of to your home page. It can also be a more complex effort such as thoroughly understanding your customers – their needs, decision making style and buying process – and taking the time to make sure their questions are answered before they have to ask them.
Adding products or services is pretty obvious. The more need-filling products or services you have to offer to a customer, the higher your revenue. This is not my main area of expertise, so I’ll say no more.
So, there you have it. Your marketing efforts should be focused on either a) increasing traffic or leads, b) converting inbound traffic to sales or sales opportunities, or c) developing new products and services to offer to your customers.
Any of these will increase your sales, but none will do it alone.
Fri, Nov 6, 2009
Conversion Rates, Traffic
Written by: Susan Tatum