I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
People do Marketing for different reasons and they have different sets of challenges concerning the Marketing they do. I conducted two surveys of my LinkedIn audience.
I asked the following:
1.What do you hope to gain from your marketing efforts?
2. What is your biggest marketing challenge? Why?
Based on survey findings, 56 percent of people use Marketing for a mix of brand awareness, lead generation, and revenue. In terms of Marketing challenges, 70 percent said that Content Marketing was the biggest.
If you didn’t get a chance to vote, answer these questions in the comments.
What do you hope to gain from your marketing? What is your biggest marketing challenge?
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
When creating a new offering, I would offer a free or low-cost trial of your product to both end-users and industry experts. Consumers look for social proof before they buy a product. If the product is new, then none exists. To lower buyer resistance, you need to make the buyer feel comfortable about their purchase. Offering free or low-cost trials of your product is a great way to build trust and gather feedback. You can conduct market research and product testing using surveys to ask potential customers about their experience.
If your product helps to solve a customer’s problem, they will be happy to share it with others; increasing the chance of converting prospects into paying users. Product testimonials and endorsements help to address product reliability and usability. Customer testimonials build loyalty, brand recognition, and sales for your product.
Loss Leaders
If free or low-cost trials are not something that you can offer, you can use loss leaders. A loss leader is when you offer a product at a loss or break-even point to gain future business. Supermarkets and e-commerce businesses do this when a new product is rolled out.
Another place I saw loss leaders was in dental field sales. Certain customers were loyal to certain types of equipment. When I asked why, they said that these were the tools they used in school and they were comfortable using them. As a result, they did not want to switch. When I called on dental schools and hospitals, I found they were in contract with larger competitors. My larger competitors sold the equipment at cost; practically giving it away. Why would they do this? My competitors were creating life-long customers trained on certain tools who refused to switch.
Connection, trust, and advocacy are essential for customer acquisition. It is your job to turn your customer base into evangelists.
Free, low-cost trials and loss leaders help to increase sales and customer loyalty. The decision on where to offer a trial or use a loss leader is dependent on the specific product, business, and industry.
I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.
As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.
I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.
Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.
I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.
Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.
Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.
Posted 110 weeks ago
Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
If I was going to launch a bunch of new product features and I was tasked with developing a social media marketing campaign to market these features to existing customers and generate new leads.
What questions might I have when starting to plan the campaign?
I would ask:
Which channels do customers use when making purchasing decisions?
I would work with the Product Team during beta testing to interview customers to gather feedback on the new features; taking the information to develop blogs and other related messaging. I would also ask customers to provide testimonials about the new features and include them in social media campaigns.
Also, I would survey customers about their learning style and which content format they prefer i.e. videos, blogs, etc. Based on the data from the survey, I would decide which channels I would use along with the type of content to develop.
With what I learned, what might my campaign look like?
The campaign would revolve around a series of Social posts based on customer feedback Including Customer Testimonials obtained from the beta testing and videos of customers using the product. I would build anticipation online using videos to announce the new features. I would have a contest online where users would need to submit an email address.
Which social platforms would I use?
I would use a blog, Email, LinkedIn, Slideshare Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube platforms to educate customers about new offerings.
Are there any emerging social strategies I would want to try?
I would like to attend industry events where I could interview experts in the space. I would want to create a group to reward loyal customers and develop an evangelist program where customers would tell their friends.
How have you marketed new product features to current and prospective customers?
