Gone are the days when selling products down one sales channel is enough. The current climate for consumers and businesses is at best confusing and at worst vast and complicated. So as a business you have to decide how you are going to sell your products in a way that is clear, uncomplicated and communicates the right message.
First and foremost the product you have needs to be the result of careful thought and targeted at the right audience. You need to either stimulate demand for a new product or tap into an existing need that you can supply. Marketing experts will bamboozle you with facts but essentially you either meet a need or create a need for a new product or service.The next step is to cost out how much it will take to put your product in the market assuming there is a need for your new product. Wisdom says its better to cancel a product than launch one that will not fly at all and in the process meet no real need. So do the maths and find out first if your product has a market, is priced right and most importantly has a distribution channel. In other words how are you and your team going to physically get it into the market place!
The cost of launching a product is time-consuming and expensive so be sure that you have sufficient expertise on board to help you and I am not talking about the bank manager as they are usually no help at all. You need, creative marketing expertise, financial help, distribution assistance and drive to make it happen.
Now here comes the hard part… with a limited budget how do you decide where to focus your energy and time…There are businesses who are purely online and I don’t need to remind you who these businesses are. If you want to be purely online focused that’s fine, but today launching an online business is just as hard as a bricks and mortar business. So multichannel marketing is the key. Multichannel marketing means promoting your goods through one or more channels. For example if you sell cosmetics you need to be seen at relevant expos, retail outlets, magazines, TV, catalogues, direct marketing or using network marketing – this is multi channel marketing.
To use multi channel marketing requires sufficient capital and vitally a tool to measure what you do. If you cannot measure what you do, don’t do it, simple. Start with the channel that offers the path of least resistance and build up channel by channel, constantly monitoring and measuring what areas of marketing work and why and those that do not. When you feel you have a successful approach then start to think about how you can measure what you do across all the channels you use to market your business.
Multi channel marketing software offers you the opportunity to gauge where you should put your focus and why!It also allows you to move your budget around depending on where the marketing opportunities are and how much they cost. Importantly it offers you a complete view of all customers transactions across the different channels that you use to promote your products or services.
Till next time happy hunting…
John Norton is a sales and marketing specialist in Europe who has helped small,medium and large enterprises generate over 150 million euros in new business. john@leaping-ahead.com
