Sales channels to reach your customers
Selling through retailers, wholesalers and other distributors
Selling through an intermediary may be a more cost-effective way of reaching your end-customers than selling to them directly.
If you are targeting business customers who prefer to deal with large suppliers, selling directly to them may not be a realistic option. Instead, you might aim to supply wholesalers who have existing relationships with those businesses.
If individual consumers buy low value quantities of your products, the best option might be to target retailers that sell similar products. Or you might choose to focus your efforts on a relatively small number of wholesalers who can in turn supply your products to many retailers.
Other distribution channels may also reach your end-customers. For example, technology suppliers often sell to resellers who can configure and install the technology to suit end-users’ particular needs.
Managing your distributors
You need distributors who will value your product. If they sell competing products, what will make them push yours?
Diet Personal selling organizations
Think about how you set your prices. Distributors will be more enthusiastic if they can make a large profit – but setting too low a price will eat into your own margins.
Effective advertising and promotions can be vital. As well as marketing to the distributor, you can promote your products directly to end-customers. Distributors will be keener to stock and sell products that their customers are asking for.
The key terms of the supply relationship should be covered in a written contract. Key issues might include:
Diet Personal selling organizations
how much stock the distributor will hold
what the distributor will do to promote your products
how quickly you can resupply and minimum order levels
whether the distributor has exclusive rights to your product (for example, in a particular territory)
what happens if either you or the distributor want to end the relationship
Business ideas, Marketing and sales , promotions and advertising ideas , articles
How to Use Social Media To Promote Your Business
How to Use Social Media To Promote Your Business
brianoconn
Business Strategy, Business Tips, Social Media Marketing
July 13, 2016
5 Minutes
The use of social media is now the most effective way when you need to promote or launch a business or new product. The free access to social networks for prospect identification and the ability to reach a large audience of buyers via content means every marketing or sales leader has to use these channels as part of a go-to-market strategy. When launching a new product or service, social media provides a rich media platform that with some planning can make it easy for people to share around your message.
It doesnt seem like so long ago that promoting, marketing and launching a product whether nationally or global required a massive budget and was one of the barriers to entry the traditional multi-nationals relied upon. But the digital switch by buyers to self-educate on the social networks has re-written both the sales and marketing rules.
The following approach or any part of it can be used by anyone with the right discipline and time.
Use Facebook
Action:
Create a Facebook fan page specifically for your brand or product, then share and network with the Facebook community as it is the largest single social networking site on the web. Remember it is about engagement and then sharing. To build up your fan and advocacy base to give you that critical mass to share your stories/messages, why not offer an incentive to like your page, maybe by giving some merchandise or prize.
Suggested Primary Goal:
Create an incentive for people to like your page by providing via a free product giveaway in order to grow your fan base.
Use LinkedIn
Action:
With over 400 million business users, one of your first actions should be to create a company page, followed by joining interest groups related to what you are selling. Dont forget to pimp up your profile with a photo and fill out as much detail in your profile as possible. Learn about social selling and how to use content from your blog (see below) along with other content to engage connections. You can also search and tag prospects, influencers and potential partners.
Suggested Primary Goal:
To identify potential buyers and partners for your brand or products.
Website and Blog
Action:
Thanks to WordPress, Weebly, Medium, Blogger etc it has never been easier or cheaper to create your own branded web presence and attract potential buyers (with some SEO and promotional activity). For less than 100 you can have your own domain and less than 500 can give you a fully branded website. Learn to target keywords, read up on SEO and how to share your website URLs on sites like Plurk, Scoop.it, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest to name but a few, will start to give you a trickle of traffic to build upon.
Learn to write 1000 plus word blogs with titles like Tips, How to, A guide to or Top 10 so you can further use social media to attract potential buyers and improve your search engine results. Try to write a blog weekly but monthly at a minimum. Dont forget to share and post your blog articles around the web.
Suggested Primary Goal
To make it easier for potential buyers to engage with you while finding out more about your business.
Product Reviews by Social Influencers
Action:
If possible, prior to formal launch try to get some external product reviews, even recommendations. As the trust between buyer and suppliers is at an all time low, peer recommendations instead of marketing blurb can give your business a much needed injection of interest. Maybe offer your product free in return for publishable references. Apart from using LinkedIn there is a whole host of social tools (lots are free) that you can use to identify social influencers or connectors. Also do not forget journalists and online magazines, approaching them can be as simple as crafting an introduction letter with an invitation to review or sample your offerings. Ensure you put a unique slant on your business, what problem is it solving and why would people be interested in your personal story.
Suggest Primary Goal:
To gather independent and verifiable 3rd party authority as social proof, which you will then share with potential customers.
Have a Contest
Action:
Who doesnt love a good ole a contest and they work well on Social media especially in the B2C space. Using your social media channels, offer up some real goodies (if not your actual product then something related to it). Keep it simple, you are not trying to snare emails, you chasing share ability
Suggest Primary Goal
Note: Get a fan base engaged before you officially launch your business or product so that when you do launch you have a fan base that could be ready to buy and spread your message for you whether that is on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The combination of your regularly updated blog, website and your social media community activity can be a powerful platform for getting in revenue faster.
Try a Quiz
Action:
It is also easy to create and publish a quiz on your website and social channels. Just do a Google search for create a quiz. There are some free and paid options. People like to test their knowledge and if you can relate or match the quiz to your product even better.
There doesnt have to be a prize but you could combine it with a contest as above.
Suggested Primary Goal: To engage customers and also create more buzz.
Create Infographics or Video
Action:
The rise in popularity of infographics and video content in social media cannot be ignored. Sites like Canva, Visualize, Piktochart and Easel.ly make it easy for anyone with some patience to create stunning graphic stories. You can even create video content online but there is a higher price to be paid here, if your product is very visual then maybe a 20-30 second video for YouTube or Vimeo maybe a must.
Suggested Primary Goal: To provide some wow media formats that could go viral.
SlideShare
Action:
You can create a PowerPoint presentation that could not serve as a key note presentation but would also publish on Slideshare to spread your message while reinforcing your professional image.
Suggested Primary Goal: Publish on the Slideshare platform to make it easy for people to
These few tips on using social media when launching a business or product are by no mean exhaustive, what else have you tried? The purpose of the article is that with a limited budget and the learning of new skills (social selling, social media marketing, creating infographics, writing blogs, running contests etc) most of us can achieve results beyond our expectations. Oh yeah, did I mention lots of hard work but no pain no gain.
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Social Media Marketing StrategyIn “Business Strategy”Digital Marketing StrategyIn “Business Strategy”Social Selling TipsIn “Business Tips”
Taggedbusinessbusiness tipslaunching a businessmarketingmarketing tipspromoting a businesssocial mediaSocial Media Marketingsocial networks
Published by brianoconn
Online Sales training programs and online sales training courses via The Digital Sales Institute. Passion for helping salespeople succeed in their sales career.
View all posts by brianoconn
Published
July 13, 2016
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