Now that the Christmas break is over and everyone’s back at work, hopefully you’re looking forward to a brand-new year in which to press onwards towards more growth and success.
As a business leader, you will no doubt have been considering what you want to achieve in 2019, setting fresh objectives and keeping an eye out for new ways to improve performance and to evolve.
To help perfect your list of resolutions, below are our top six recommendations for driving your business forward and exceeding your goals this year and beyond…
1. Get complete customer insight
Did you know that more than 60% of buying decisions* are made without a salesperson’s input, often in forums and specialist interest groups that you can’t easily see?
With NLP (Natural Language Processing) Technology you get unique access to information on how your company is viewed in the market place, what your customers are really saying about you and your competition and what their key challenges are. This provides you with a complete picture on which to base strategic decisions and brand positioning, meaning you will be operating more accurately and efficiently than ever before.
2. Automate your sales activities
It’s no exaggeration to say that sales automation will transform the way your business works. It automates manual, recurring, repetitive tasks, dramatically reducing the amount of admin your teams are ploughing through and giving them time back to spend on actual selling.
If you’re using different systems, automation will pull everything together so you’re only having to deal with one CRM tool, thus saving money as well as time. You will also be provided with invaluable data on what content is engaging your customers and should help to improve the often mis-aligned relationship between sales and marketing.
3. Focus on delighting customers
To stand out from your competition, your customer experience needs to be ten times better than they will find elsewhere. It’s no longer all about the product but about removing potential friction leading to an enjoyable, easy buyer’s journey.
Exceeding expectations is key so that your customers stay loyal and become brand advocates, promoting you to their peers and attracting more of your target demographic.
Some ideas to delight could include featuring promotions and discounts, but the ones that really thrill are less strategic and more spontaneous and personal, surprising and memorable.
If a customer wants to leave, don’t block the exit, let them go. They may come back to you in the future and they will have a better opinion of you if you didn’t stop them leaving, plus, it shows real confidence in your product or service.
4. Forget the funnel – it’s dead!
Earlier this year, Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot, announced he was retiring the famous “Funnel” and replacing it with the “Flywheel”.
The age-old funnel lost momentum at the bottom, but with a wheel, it uses its momentum to keep spinning, keeping your business growing.
This goes hand in hand with our previous resolution about delighting customers – the Flywheel puts them at the heart of everything and structuring your business this way should provide you with the biggest return on investment of any activity.
5. Produce video content
Video has rapidly become one of the most crucial pieces of marketing for grabbing your potential customers’ attention. Thanks to smartphones, creating content is way cheaper than it ever has been and generally authenticity is what counts here, way above a huge, slick production.
Recent research~ has shown that using video on landing pages can increase conversion rates by 80% and 90% of customers have stated that videos have helped them make buying decisions. With statistics like this, you’ll need to include it within your marketing strategy if you aren’t already doing so.
6. Introduce sales calling cards
This is gaining popularity with some early adopting companies using video messaging to augment their use of email. Of course, many businesses are already regularly using Webex and Skype for conference calling and some have taken this a step further by using WhatsApp or Facetime for business calls.
It’s certainly easier to make an impact leaving a video message for a client than an e-mail that can easily be missed in a crowded inbox. You could even try replacing your signature on an email with a link to a short video that tells people about yourself.
This is not something that’s way off in the future, but it’s happening now - it just takes the right type of culture and shift in mindset to drive it through. If you'd like to see some examples of this in action, engage with us and we’ll demonstrate.
To find out more about how these resolutions would work for your organisation, enter your details below and we’ll be in touch, or give us a call.
*Source – Narrative Worx
~Source - HubSpot
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