How to Create An Effective Marketing Plan That Gets You Actual Sales

Joie Thompson May 18, 2016 5 Comments

You can have the best product or service in the whole wide world, but if you cannot clearly articulate what anyone stands to gain when they purchase it, your product or service will NOT sell.

Clearly articulating it and getting the potential buyer to imagine themselves using it, achieving the results it proposes is what will move them to take the conscious decision to buy from you. This is the first step. The next will be to consistency present it to the people who want the results you promise.

What’s complicated and frustrating about marketing perhaps, is how small business owners and those that work in the field of marketing think about it.

When asked “who is your customer?”, the immediate response is “everyone”.

Here is a fact.

Because you feel “everyone needs and should have your product or service” does not necessarily mean that everyone wants it. There is no product or service that appeals to everyone, at the exact same time, in the exact same circumstance. />

The focus should be placing your products or service in front of the right people.

Who are the right people?

These are people that are willing and able to pay for your products or services because they see it as the best solution to their needs.

Sadly, many business owners find it difficult to clearly define who the PERFECT type of client for their business is. They don’t know where these people hang out, what questions they are asked, what their challenges are and how to position their product or service as the solution to these challenges.

They come up with different plans to market their products and services but many times these plans do not ensure a consistent inflow of the right kind of people, looking for the product or service they provide. 

Furthermore, there is no marketing system in place to help nurture and engage with prospective clients so that they know, like and trust them enough to make a purchase.

If you are a business owner struggling with all these issues, the first step is to identify the PERFECT type of client for you and your business. 

You can do that right now when you click here to get the 5 steps to creating an effective marketing system for your business. 

Once you know who exactly you should be putting your products and service in front of, the next step is to plug them into a marketing system that can be tracked and measured for results. 

A good marketing system comprises of the following components:

1. Lead Generation

2. Lead Nurturing

3. Lead Conversion

Lead Generation

This process involves figuring out how to capture the time and attention of people who are currently in need of what you’re offering, or who might need it in the future. At this stage, the currency for exchange it time and attention. As a rule of thumb, FREE always gets anyone’s attention. So what free stuff can you give in order to get the attention of people to your brand, products or service?

From an online marketing perspective, you can monitor and analyze anyone that is looking at your online activities and tailor your approach to reach them. But to get this system setup and working fine, your first port of call after knowing your ideal clients is to build a list – getting an endless stream of qualified people looking at your business, in two words – Lead Generation.

For example,  An agency develops a website or partnerships with several websites in which they promote and advertise your product or service. A consumer finds these directories or informational sites and they are able to complete an online quote request form. This form is submitted to the agency. The buyer’s information is verified and matched to the appropriate providers. These matched leads are then sent via email to the prospective providers with full contact information and purchasing requirements.

The best way to do this is to show these people that you understand what their problems or needs are and educate them on how your product or service is the solution they’ve been looking for.

Lead generation, if done with a consistent and innovative approach, gives your digital marketing system an endless sales pipeline. It will help to improve brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and improve sales on an enormous scale.

Lead Nurturing

This is the process of educating your leads on why they need whatever you are selling, why you are the best option and what they stand to gain just because they picked you. Your job here is to move them towards making a buying decision. They must feel like they arrived at the decision themselves even though you guided them to it.

“How can you carry the conversation forward? Think of lead nurturing as being an extension of the conversation you started with lead generation.”

The easiest way to conduct lead nurturing is to look at the relationships that you already have started through the different lead generation sources and ask what content or information can be shared to advance that conversation.

Not all leads are ready to purchase in an instance, it’s important to interact with your leads and to determine which stage they are at.

Are they just hearing of your products and services? Or, have they been searching for the right products and services for some time and are comparing your offerings to those of your competitors?

Just because a lead isn’t ready to buy this very instant, it doesn’t mean they aren’t almost ready to buy. The only way to find out where they’re at is to ask, but first, you must establish trust.

In order for buyers to trust you, you have to show them that you are listening, and that you are talking to them, specifically. If you send the same exact email or post card to every one of your leads, they will know you aren’t being genuine. By personalizing your emails and other content and customizing it to meet the needs of the specific person you’re trying to reach, you’ll have a much better chance of catching and keeping the lead’s attention, and more importantly, their trust.

Lead Conversion

Simply put, this is when there is an exchange of money from client and customer to seller. It is very common for you to think this is where it ends, but it also involves ensuring product/service delivery, product/service satisfaction and eventually creating product/service evangelist from your customer and clients.

For many business owners, marketing and sales executives, the issue is graduating their prospective clients from one component of the system to the next.

The second issue they also battle with is that they spend so much time, effort and money on marketing systems that yield little or no returns.

Why go through all these when there is a better way…

If you are at a point where you are looking for a consistent inflow of the PERFECT type of client for your business or…

If you want a marketing system that allows you track and measure all your activities or…

If you want to set up a effective marketing system that generates, engages and converts your PERFECT type of clients into actual sales then click on this link and discover the 5 steps you must take to create an effective marketing system for your business.

AboutJoie Thompson

The Content Marketing Executive at iVEN Digital. She helps brands develop effective marketing stories, to attract their ideal customers to their business, products, and services, engage with them and convert them to sales and also, repeat sales. She is responsible for digital content creation, curation, and editing on social media platforms and other digital platforms.