What comes to your mind when you hear the term strategic sales planning? Is it a sales strategy that helps you produce and market a product and sells on its own? Or an effective plan to market your product to boost your revenue and improve customer acquisition and conversion rate?
When releasing a product into the market, you’re not supposed to sit back and wait for miracles to happen. Remember, execution without a plan is just a total waste of time, money, and effort. Because of this, your product will surely fail in the market. That’s why it’s important to formulate strategic sales planning to avoid all the chaos that may happen.
A formidable sales plan will help you achieve the following:
- Priorities that all people know
- Realistic and measurable results
- Goals that can be achieved
- Rules that people can adhere
With a strategic sales plan, your teams would be able to make the best decisions about the current situation. This is because they already know the big picture and how to achieve it.
What Is The Importance Of Strategic Sales Planning?
When you’re trying to produce a brilliant product, you need to have an effective sales strategy to market it. Without a strategic sales plan, your brilliant ideas will only go to waste, no matter how great their potential is.
Also, it wouldn’t be best to rely on your marketing plan if you’re looking for an effective way to sell your products, simply because it’s not the goal of a marketing plan. To understand further, here’s the difference between a marketing and sales plan:
- A marketing plan is designed to improve your products’ visibility in the market.
- A sales plan is created to sell your products in the market.
Therefore, having a great marketing strategy won’t sell your product if you have a failing sales plan. However, working on these two aspects will help you sell and market your products at the same time in a much more efficient and effective manner.
What Are The Best Practices For Strategic Sales Planning?
A strategic sales plan will not be complete without implementing it effectively. These strategies will help you achieve the goals of your plan:
- Create A Stunning Sales Pitch
A sales pitch is a crucial element of attracting potential buyers, whether you’re promoting or selling a new or existing product or service. One of the best ways to create an effective sales pitch is to formulate a story that punches a challenge to your prospects.
That being said, here are things you need to include in your sales pitch:
- Create a message that boosts their interest.
- State your purpose and intent of reaching out to them.
- State the issues and challenges you’re trying to solve.
- State the ways your products or services can help them.
Furthermore, an effective sales pitch draws the attention of your potential buyer and encourages them to take, not just consider, your offer. Also, it transcends the boundaries of a human’s emotional level through the connection established between you and your client.
- Approach Inbound Leads Immediately
Inbound leads are prospects looking for a way to solve their problems. Unlike outbound leads, these people are well-informed about the products and services they need and will most likely purchase what you offer as soon as possible.
By reaching them out immediately, you show them that you’re really interested in helping them out. In return, you’ll be able to close the deal much faster than your competitors. Not only that, but you’re also able to build trust and loyalty with them.
- Have Consistent Follow-Up Calls and Messages
The best way to show your prospects that you care for them and want to help them is by consistently reaching out to them, especially if they don’t respond to the emails you send. In fact, the most challenging part of following up is when they don’t give any response.
When following up, try to do it at least seven times to grab their attention and listen to what you have to say. Also, being consistent helps you improve your sales process and grab all the opportunities that may arise.
Here’s a seven-step follow-up process you might want to implement: email, second email, first follow-up email, call or voicemail, second follow-up email, third follow-up email, and breakup email.
- Get Referrals
Did you know that many people consider the opinion of others about the product they want before they purchase it? This is because most consumers rely on and trust the opinions and feedback of others on the product they want to buy.
That’s why it’s important to ask for referrals from your existing customers since they know your products and services inside and out. They’ll most likely give you customers as loyal as they are.
- Get Feedback
Feedback is crucial information from your customers that will help you improve your products and services about the things they probably lack. If you’re in the process of building your brand, you might receive a lot of negative comments.
However, a positive person will take these comments as constructive criticisms. Instead, they use such comments to fill in the gaps between their products and services. But don’t forget to weed out malicious comments from those you can take as constructive criticism.
Furthermore, if you show your customers how you value their opinion, they will most likely put their trust in you and purchase more of your products and services in the future.
Final Words
Strategic sales planning is a crucial element of every successful business, especially if you’re trying to aim for a product that sells itself in the market. It helps companies sell their products and services in the market through the use of effective techniques. These include creating a perfect sales pitch, reaching out to inbound leads immediately, having consistent follow-ups, and asking for feedback and referrals.
Also, it’s worth noting that having a great marketing plan won’t help you sell your products effectively. It might help you boost your brand’s visibility but not when it comes to selling it. That’s why having a strategic sales plan to go hand-in-hand with your marketing plan will surely increase your sales and brand awareness effectively.
Related: Top 10 Tips to improve Sales Performance in a Business
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