Commerce (and the market system) is like hunting. You need to stay sharp: know the right places, have the right mindset, and keep your skills up to date. If you want to be top dog, you must bring the right amount of effort. Nobody got to the top by playing it safe.
That being said, you can work smarter instead of harder if you know what to improve. We’ve gathered the best, and trimmed them down to be easily understood.
Research
A newsfeed stocked with helpful articles will keep you up to date. This involves your email list too. Sign up for newsletters and follow top industry professionals to stay sharp and learn new tricks. It may take a bit to curate this list, but that’s one of the beauties of research, you can choose what helps and what doesn’t.
If a blog or website isn’t helping you, cut it loose. Be ruthless in your search for accurate, helpful information. You only have so much attention span in a day, so don’t waste it on fluff when you can spend it improving yourself.
Keywords and search tags are your friends. Think long and hard about relevant topics to your business. For example, a small business owner selling skincare would need to search for skincare trends, best skincare, and weird skincare routines. Use Google trends to find upcoming rivals and hashtags on social media for more information.
If all else fails, go back to school if you have to! A solid understanding of the market is essential to dominating it.
Teamwork/Networking
Together, we make up more than the sum of our parts. This means that we can achieve more working as a team than we could alone. Great marketing is not excluded from this tactic.
If you’re already part of a team, talk with your coworkers and involve them with your tasks. If your business does well, it reflects well on the entire team. Use this as a way to involve everyone.
Collaborating with others is the quickest way to refine ideas. This means doing your part and listening for what works and what doesn’t. If you’ve assigned tasks to others in your team, prioritize the feedback they give. This will help your business grow when you understand what works and what doesn’t.
We live in an interdependent society, which means at some point, we have to deal with other people to survive. Learning to do this well can only help your business. Join a volunteer group, you never know who you’ll meet, or the lesson you could learn.
Engagement
Studies show that people make more purchases with their emotional mind than their rational one. For sales to increase, you must appeal to this “reptile mind.”. So many companies are available selling similar products. With market oversaturation, it makes sense that people will choose to buy from companies that align with their own ideals.
Engagements like these come on different fronts. On the lightest level, it’s how you present yourself and your business. This can be your logo, slogan, and the language on your website. Think of your target audience and what they would want to see.
On the other hand, this also means engaging with your rivals. This doesn’t mean to start an altercation with them, simply know who they are and what they’re doing. By studying your rival businesses, you can see what works for them and appropriate their own tactics to increase your marketability.
Social Media
Without a doubt, not using social media is your biggest mistake.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and all the other giants out there are capturing people’s attention on a monumental scale. Customers use social media every day, if not all day, and most of them are looking for products to buy. If your business seems like a friendly neighbor, then you have already won a major battle. People trust others in their community.
This pairs with engagement. From your laptop, tablet, or mobile device, several platforms exist to help with online outreach. You can post updates about your business, sales, news, and relevant content to display an ideal that attracts customers.
People love stories, and social media brings that love to the forefront. Your company’s story can unfold in front of your prospective customers, and they can engage, merging their story with yours.
These tactics must be tailored to fit each organization. One may work better than the other, and some may not work at all. You must try each one to understand how it works with your business and the market. However, once you get them streamlined, these strategies will take your sales to the next level.