Everybody has heard the saying “knowledge is power.” For business owner’s knowledge often comes from data, thus “data is power.” The more data your small business has the better, right? How many widgets sold last month and how many are in inventory? What is the profit margin on each widget sold? What were total sales yesterday, or last week? These are questions that business owners can answer quickly, and they are all derived from data.
While digital marketing simplifies some things, it doesn’t change the basic rules of the game. People buy from people they trust, and they trust what they hear about you from your other customers more than they trust what you say about yourself. To stay competitive, you definately need your customers to be your online allies to increase traffic and sales.
Remember the days when some companies couldn’t help but retain customers no matter what they did? If you are older, like me, you remember when the phone book was twice as thick, when people bought and used encyclopedias from a door-to-door salesperson, and when people would actually mail letters. There was no internet yet to compete and then eventually become the norm. These days rarely is a company that fortunate. Instead companies must plan, strategize and compete for every dollar.
Different market segments require different marketing approaches. As a recent post pointed out, marketing to technology-savvy Millennials who use social media requires a different strategy than marketing to retirees more comfortable with print ads.
It is easy enough to say that the main goal of most business owners is to increase sales and revenue within their organization. But, for many, this is often easier said than done. Here are five keys to increasing your sales and how you can go about implementing them in your own business.
