sales engagement

With the increasing competition in the business world, new companies are getting launched in the market almost every day.

In an already saturated industry, customers already have their set of preferences for a product or service.

Therefore, to make your business stand out you not just need to understand your target audience but also ensure that you are using multiple channels of sales to reach out to them.

Benefits of employing multiple channel sales strategy to work

It helps you to reach new customers who do not buy directly from the vendors but prefer buying the same product from resellers or consultants.

If an efficient channel sales program is put to use, your business can easily tap into this market.
If a proper channel sales strategy is used with the help of third-party marketplaces and managed service providers, you can leverage the sales for your business.
Lastly, starting your business in a new location can accentuate your business if the correct channel sales strategy comes in handy along with it.

Types of sales channels

There are numerous businesses nowadays and each of them has its own needs and requirements. That being said, it is obvious that every business would have a different approach to satisfy their needs and therefore, the channel of sales would also differ.

Earlier, the channels of sales used to be a physical presence like a shop and then a website but now the possibilities are almost endless. Basically, there are two types of selling – direct and indirect.

While direct selling channels allows a customer to buy goods or services directly from the manufacturer, an indirect sales channel makes the product reach the customer through other distribution channels. Listed below are some of the most chosen options by entrepreneurs.

Ecommerce website

It can be a good idea to sell your product or service online as 2.14 billion people worldwide spend hours on the internet for shopping.

Having a website means cutting the cost of having a physical space. However, there are other costs like hosting and development.

Retail outlet

The population of high street shoppers has declined over the past few years. As a result of the cruel blow of the Covid-19 pandemic, the already struggling retailers had to face subsequent lockdowns, thereby leading to the closure of the shop’s doors to the customers.

However, as the nationwide lockdown was revoked, the businesses of bricks and mortar retail stores started bouncing back to life.

Shops selling furniture, homeware, and home improvements are all thriving as people are staying more in their homes and taking interest in decorating them differently.

Also, last year, there was a trend of supporting independent businesses and shopping local to help them thrive.

Third-Party Websites

Third-party websites are those organizations that sell your products in lieu of commission. For each product sold by them, you have to pay a monthly fee to them.

These websites have a usually vast and different audience than your own. Rendering the services of a third-party website allows you to introduce new people to your brand.

Some of the most prominent examples of third-party websites include Airbnb and Booking.com which tie up accommodation providers and offer discounts and offers to customers for staying at a property.

One of the best examples of marketplace retailers is Amazon. Though selling on Amazon might look easy, in reality, it requires a lot of hard work in terms of determining the pricing strategy and advertising to ensure that you can give tough competition to other sellers.

It is mandatory to create a balancing strategy while putting the third-party websites to use.

Then this balancing strategy can be employed for introducing new customers to your brand and then trying to convert them to buy direct through your website next time.

This can be done by sending out physical marketing collateral, like promoting your channel or through leaflets.

If you have your customer’s email address, then that can be used to add them to a nursery email program – GDPR compliant.

Things to consider while choosing your mix of sales channels

It is not necessary to have every sales channel at your disposal. However, it is imperative to sit back and consider if you are using the right sales channels for your products.

This would ensure that your product, service, and most importantly your brand is one the right track to maximize the business’ potential.

You should determine the cost-effective parameter as well as the performance angle while deciding which sales channel is the right one for your business.

It is also essential to continuously test different sales channels as markets change. Here are a few things you should consider when you are deciding which sales channels to choose:

Type of Product

You know your product and you would also know about the target audience more than anyone else.

You should begin by conducting some market research about your customers or potential customers and find out how you can provide them with lucrative offers and what would go against your product.

Market

Think about the market of your product – if you sell it directly to consumers or B2B. It is also important to determine the efficient ways of selling your products by making them easily viable to your customers.

Are your channels competing with each other?

Your sales channels should work towards a common goal instead of competing with each other.

For instance, a business based on network marketing depends on personal relationships between the executives and customers.

Now if they decide to launch an E-commerce site, customers can order food online because of the pre-established relationships. Other websites might also compete with your business by pushing their ranking on Google.

Therefore, it is important to keep a check that your website isn’t suffering if you sell your products somewhere else online.

Costs and Benefits

Determine the costs and benefits of each sales channel before you decide on finalizing them.

You can also take advantage of any trial periods before you fully commit to putting a sales channel to use. You can also keep a track of which sales channel your competitors are using.

Also Read: Top 5 Benefits of Google Workspace for Your Online Business

As a sales professional, you must agree that when prospects show interest in your services and/or products, they will always expect a fast and personal reply.

A study shows that most of the consumers consider this as one of the most important elements in any sales interaction.

However, in today’s sales environment, very few in-person opportunities arise for engaging with your prospects.

For this very reason, faster, more practical, and above all, personalized outreach programs have become very necessary in order to build up your sales pipeline and to establish a trusted relationship with your prospects.

But it is much easier said than done as engaging with your leads after following-up is very much time-consuming, not to mention the tediousness. This has led to the development of sales engagement through automation tools and software.

In this article, we will learn what exactly sales engagement means, why would your business needs sales engagement, and how you can benefit from adopting some of the best sales engagement practices?

What is Sales Engagement?

The term Sales Engagement can be defined as a collection of interactions and/or exchanges conducted between a sales rep and the target audience (prospects).

It is a measurable quantity and is done so by ‘contact-points’ (aka touches) or the time spent by both parties on each interaction.

Any action taken by the prospect, be it opening an email, clicking on a link, or even downloading an ebook or video, is considered as a form of Sales Engagement.

The rate at which the prospects complete these actions tell the sales rep how engaged each prospect is.

This is a very effective technique as it helps the sales reps to understand the requirements of the prospects more clearly and come up with the best support strategy.

There are many software and tools in the market that can help with Sales Engagement.

Why do I need Sales Engagement?

In order to understand this, we will need to look at some of the “pain-points” of sales and how do they affect the overall sales of your rep.

A quick survey would tell you that at least one of these seven “pain-points” is a worrisome issue for any Sales Manager.

Manual, time-consuming repetitive tasks are a sales rep’s worst nightmare

Even though the main responsibility of a sales rep is to close a deal as smoothly and efficiently as possible, an array of related tasks are always associated with a sales reps job description.

Sending emails, following-up with prospects and making other calls, keeping the CRM updated, etc. are to name a few.

These manual, tedious, and repetitive tasks, by no means, contribute towards closing a deal. Rather these tasks are very time-consuming and eat up most of the work hours of every sales rep.

These tasks easily de-track a sales rep from selling. This situation has led to the automation of these tedious tasks. By automating these tasks, the sales reps can gain a bulk of time that was earlier being consumed by the manual operation.

In turn, the sales reps can focus more on selling rather than on admin tasks.

The necessity of personalizing at scale

Balancing the scale of one’s outreach programs with personalization is another very common challenge faced by sales teams globally.

Keep in mind that your customers or buyers will always expect and prefer personalization in your outreach programs. This goes to show that as a sales rep you know about their interests and who they are.

This approach is really effective as it impressively increases your chances of hearing back from them.

On the other hand, as a seller, you will need to scale your outreach programs so that you can attract a larger target audience, and hence, increase your prospect list.

This creates an instant tug of war that you cannot satisfyingly conclude. And this confuses your sales reps in choosing between whether to reach out to a larger bulk of potential customers with a lower level of personalization or to personalize every outreach initiative for each client?

This scenario has made it necessary for a platform that can aid in this dilemma and the answer to that was found in the form of sales engagement software that helps the reps to balance out their sales strategies.

ALSO READ : A Guide To An Ideal System Administrator’s Role And Ethics In The Concurrent World

Excess of sales tools have led to data clogging

Your sales reps may end up being overwhelmed rather than being overjoyed with the availability of a string of specialized sales tools available these days.

In today’s business world, most of the sales institutions have already engaged in multiple tools to support their sales reps and selling activities, hence improving their productivity.

These tools do not work by complementing each other, rather they operate independently. This ends up creating major issues for the sales teams as they end up toggling in between these tools.

As a result, a lot of data gets stuck in different storage locations or “silos” and hinders the sales reps from getting a clear picture at a singular location.

Instead, investing in a software or platform that can integrate the various tools is a much more effective support mechanism.

These are but a few of the challenges faced by sales organizations. Missing out on crucial business decision-driving data is another such serious issue that can be addressed and simplified with a Sales Engagement software in place.

Also, your CRM is not enough to efficiently handle customer engagement alone.

Benefits of Sales Engagement Software

Personalized engagement with prospects

With such technology, you can simultaneously scale up your outreach programs and activities as well as improve the genuineness of each customer engagement with a higher level of personalization in each case.

With a Sales Engagement platform, you can easily set up an automated yet intelligent follow-up activity sequence(s), which, in turn, gives you better productivity and engagement.

Integrated platform

Data, existing in the different “silos” in an organization, are connected to each other cohesively into a single location with the help of this awesome technology we are discussing today.

This means that your CRM system is also integrated into this platform. This makes it much easier for you to select the best sales and marketing materials available to form up a grand strategy for executing your tasks smoothly and enhancing your productivity.

Sales reps are always privy to all their engagement needs like customer insight, communication execution, etc. in a single solution.

A stronger CRM system

As we said earlier that Sales Engagement software integrates CRM systems as well.

This means your existing CRM system will not be lost, rather amplified to a more effective aid to you. The CRM acts as a central repository while the Sales Engagement platform will act as a layer of communication that helps your reps to boost their productivity the smart way.

ALSO READ : 10 Mistakes Sales Representatives Makes Way Too Often And The Solutions To Avoid Them

It helps them conduct smart-work rather than hard-work.

So, now that you know how valuable this software has become in the current sales scenario, get started with your own!