As a startup or a small business looking for the right sales and marketing platform, or even a company looking to change marketing and sales platforms for the advantage of the business, you might not know that you can mix and match software for ultimate sales and marketing benefits.
Mixing and matching marketing and sales platforms and software are called multi-channel marketing. By combining your favorite sales engagement platforms, you could increase productivity in the marketing department, effectively engage with prospects and leads, and save on the marketing budget.
Supporting a multi-channel approach to your sales and marketing strategies by merging them could show positive and successful results. Keep reading below and we’ll explain how mixing and matching your promotional and engagement platforms can help your business increase its efficiency and profit.
What is Multi-Channel Marketing?
Have you noticed that in many companies there are two departments that seem to do similar tasks but go by a different working title? It’s most likely your sales team and your marketing team.
Where some businesses have figured out that sales and marketing go together well, they have essentially created what is called a multi-channel sales and marketing process that utilizes both teams’ strategies combined.
When the goal of both sales and marketing is to bring in revenue and profit, why not combine them to create a great team that works together with the same goal in mind?
You might find that multi-channel marking also refers to the practice of using multi-channels (print, digital, radio, etc.) marketing and advertisement to broaden the reach of potential customers. While this is correct, if we delve deeper, the meaning goes much further.
Have you heard the saying “teamwork makes the dream work”? Now you have.
Where the marketing team has strategies and tactics to generate leads and prospects for the business through advertisement, reach, and analysis, the sales team is responsible for converting the leads into customers and clients.
Marketing works on attracting numerous prospects while sales might only work with one prospect at a time. Basically, the sales team can’t do their job without the marketing team and the marketing team can’t do theirs without the sales team.
Integrating and mixing and matching platforms and software for both teams means both teams are responsible for deciding which platforms to use, why they work best, and how they can generate the best outcome for the business.
Sales and marketing departments do not need to work individually, but rather, through cross-marketing and multi-channel marketing, should be working together for optimal results in your business’s success.
What are Common Marketing and Sales Tools?
Marketing and sales tools are generally different from one another, but when you combine them, they become highly effective.
Marketing tools need to be used to attract potential customers and generate interest in the business’s products and services. The marketing team isn’t generally responsible for the sales of the products, but they do need to understand the analytics of their tools so they can work with the sales team to show results.
Here are some common marketing tools:
· Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
· Social Media Marketing (SMM) (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
· Press Releases (PR)
· Customer Loyalty Programs (i.e., sign up to get the second item half price, 50% off sale for members only, etc.)
· Print Advertising (i.e., newspapers, newsletters, window posters, banners, etc.)
· Commercial Ads (i.e., movie previews, television ads, radio station promotion)
· Letterbox drop (i.e., brochures, postcards, catalogues, etc.)
· Email campaigns
Sales tools are the more intimate part of the process for converting leads into happy customers. Having a good relationship with your customers is essential for making revenue and return on investment (ROI).
The sales team picks up where the marketing team leaves the seeds to generate leads and they do it by analyzing the results of the marketing strategies implemented to attract customers.
Here are some common sales tools:
· Sales Analytics
· Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (i.e., keep track of employee interactions with potential leads and customers to manage the relationship you have with the client)
· Sales Productivity
· Automated Data Integration
· Document Tracking
· Personalized emails
· SalesForce
· Business website
When one platform isn’t working as well as hoped, both marketing and sales reps can come together, mix and match their functions, and find a solution simultaneously. There is no need to blame one department or another when both are striving for the same goal.
How to Choose a Marketing and/or Sales Platform for Your Business?
If you’re trying to figure out what sales or marketing platform is right for your company, the first thing to look for is what suits your customers best.
This could be social media marketing and sales tactics if your business predominately gains exposure and leads from a platform like Instagram. You would then choose marketing options around social media marketing.
It could also be contacting prospective leads individually if the sales team has noticed an increase in purchasing through cold calls.
Either way, through measured results and analytic data, whatever is currently working best for your business is where you should focus your sales and marketing strategies alike.
With so many platforms available, choosing the right one for a new business, whether small or large, is not typically an easy decision to make. That’s why trial and error is important for you as much as your marketing and sales team working in unison for the common purpose.
Here are some tips to help you choose the right marketing platforms for your business:
Ø Ask yourself some questions
· What do you want to achieve with your marketing tactics?
· What are your company’s objectives and goals?
· What is your budget?
· How easy is the platform to use?
· Can this marketing tool integrate with sales?
These simple questions will help you to better understand your priority in the area of marketing. For example, if budgeting is tight in the beginning you may opt for setting up a free social media platform and advertising your services through there.
Some social media platforms, like Instagram, have an insights overview so that you can see where you’re gaining followers, how many accounts you’re reaching, accounts engaged with, and more. It’s free, easy to use, and integrates sales and marketing.
Ø Where is your target audience?
If your product or service is targeted to children under the age of 10 or seniors above the age of 70, you probably wouldn’t use much social media to create brand awareness. If this has been tried, the sales team should have already notified the marketing team that this strategy isn’t working. (Although if you integrated these teams everybody would already know it’s not working).
Go where the target audience is. For example, adults around the age of 65 and older watch over four hours of television a day, according to Statista, so you would be better off targeting that age group through commercial advertisements.
Ø Where does your product or service fit?
If you only plan to sell locally, your service or product fits nice and snug on a little catalog in a letterbox. If you’re not into leaving your footprint via a paper trail, local services can be advertised through banners, bus stop posters, radio advertisements, etc.
If you take public transport to work, look at the people who stand at the train station or the bus stop with you. What is their age group and demographic? What are they doing? Are these the people you want to sell your products to? Does your service fit in the lifestyle of these people you share your morning and evening commute with?
If you genuinely don’t feel that your product fits in with the big city life, then where?
What’s the Best Marketing/ Sales Platform for You?
Marketing strategies typically involve mixing and matching numerous sales and marketing platforms to create an array of results.
With so many platforms available, we have compiled a list of the platforms that are most commonly used in 2021 – 2022, some statistics on their sales results, and whether they might be a good option for you, or if you’re better off trying something different.
Don’t forget multi-channel marketing and sales can boost your CRM and provide numerous effective communication channels.
Ø Instagram
Here is what it takes to sell your products and services on Instagram:
- Show a variety
- Use influencer marketing
- Post about your products regularly
- Be real
- Create stories and highlight reviews, processes, and insights
- Share and re-post product tags
- Interact to build customer relationships
In 2021, 32% of Instagram users were aged between 25 and 34 with just over two-thirds of Instagram being used by people younger than 34. In January 2022 men between the ages of 18 and 24 made up 17% of Instagram users and women, in general, take up 51% of the users on Instagram.
If your target audience is in this age group, then a platform like Instagram is a good marketing option for your business. Here are some important Instagram statistics for marketers in 2022 that want to focus on social media marketing platforms.
Ø Facebook
The largest audience for Facebook users are people aged between 25 and 34, with approximately 32% of the audience segment.
Facebook has an automated ad campaign setup, but it’s not very user-friendly so you would need someone that understands Facebook, technology, and patience to set these ads up. For better results, you will also need a bit of a budget, unlike Instagram which has the benefit of multiple hashtags to represent the products.
Facebook does provide access to free marketing opportunities, but you might find in your marketing analysis and sales evaluations that without some additional social media marketing funds, sales aren’t skyrocketing.
Having a Facebook store can increase your sales and boost your brand exposure drastically if you utilize the store and sales techniques properly.
Setting up a Facebook store is free and is accessible to businesses around the globe. It can provide an effective and easy way to advertise products and it also provides leads and customers with flexible options for purchase in the checkout stage.
Ø Twitter
Where Instagram and Facebook can handle both the marketing and sales sides of lead generation and conversion, so can Twitter. The difference is that Twitter is more about brand building and reputation through CRM.
Twitter is Japan’s number one social network platform, even above Instagram which has historically been the number one used social media platform for years. Although Facebook is still number one by millions of users, Twitter takes the lead in Japan. 18 – 29-year-old people make up 42% of Twitter users in the US, 27% are between 30 and 49 years old and at least 80% are millennials.
Ø YouTube
YouTube is the second most popular social networking platform in the world, just behind Facebook.
Not only can you utilize YouTube videos and information to sell your products through tutorials and influential videos like “how-to” guides, but you can also use YouTube for commercial advertisement. Plant the seeds, generate interest.
YouTube generated over US$5 billion in advertising revenue alone in the third quarter, 2020. With over 1.7 billion active users and over 14.3 billion visits annually, you would have a far reach for your products and services. 99% of YouTube users also have access to other social media platforms too so this is where mixing and matching marketing and sales techniques can work for your business.
Ø TikTok
TikTok became one of the fastest used and most popular sharing platforms exceptionally fast because of covid and the lockdowns. Yes, it had picked up speed before then but covid helped it along because of the challenges, dances, duets, etc., that were available for people to interact and have fun when it was needed.
TikTok is another social media platform that has less than 1% of its users unique to the platform. Meaning 99% of TikTok users also have other social media accounts on other platforms.
Small businesses have found success through advertising on TikTok through brand reach and increased sales. Short videos are fast becoming the way to sell products so if you can get an influencer who likes your products and/or services to record and post some videos on their account, your sales will likely increase.
Here are a few tips to help you sell on TikTok if this is one of your chosen platforms:
· Be fun and creative
TikTok users are mainly under the age of 29 with almost 50% of users being aged between 10 and 29. For this reason alone you should keep your videos light and fun.
· Provide product overviews
· Introduce the team
· Show your followers and users how you utilize the product or service
· Explain the name behind the business
· Cute animals can boost likes and shares
· Share what your business is about and how it came to be
· Provide unique and informative tutorials
Ø Influencer Marketing
Watch your sales team beam at the results when a liked and well-known influencer or celebrity boosts your revenue by up to US$6.50 for every US$1.00 spent on an invested influencer.
Influencers can reach your target market if you choose the right one but fail to select the right influencer and you could also be a part of the 18% of companies that fail to generate revenue through influencer marketing.
People trust people, not particularly the brand or product. For example, if the founder of a product tried to sell it as an influencer people might think he or she is just biased. Whereas a well-known and much-liked celebrity, like Jennifer Anniston for example, could use the same product and share it with her followers and sales would increase drastically.
Ø Advertising through traditional marketing
If used the right way, traditional marketing strategies can still work. Traditional marketing is considered to be television ads, newspaper ads, magazine ads, TV commercials, radio talk show promotion, poster prints, and catalog mail.
When is the last time you picked up a catalog, clearly circled everything on your wish list, and casually left it on the bench for your other half to find? We’ve all done it…
Traditional marketing can help your business to establish its credibility, find its feet with its initial audience group, be an effective community implementation, and build brand awareness and relationships.
Using promotional materials that aren’t online can really gain traction in local communities, rather than further away. It’s a good place for startups to get reviews and feedback before going through the world wide web.
Even marketing can also provide new opportunities for current and new clients to get to know and understand the business and its products better.
References
Above are just some of the more common and popular platforms to mix and match your sales and marketing methods. If the first platform you use doesn’t work, try another.
According to Hootsuite’s global overview of social media platforms, everyone utilizing one of these platforms is at least using one or two others as well. So which marketing or sales platform is the right one for your business? It might be all of them but always check your budgeting first.