What are sales strategies/Types/Examples

Sales strategies are techniques, actions and tools used to prospect and win customers, generate more business and increase the company’s profitability. They are created through a strategic planning of the commercial area, which includes objectives, goals and deadlines to enhance results.

If you are an entrepreneur, one of the challenges that accompany you daily is to increase your business sales and keep it constantly growing, right? Therefore, in an increasingly competitive scenario, investing in assertive sales strategies is decisive for the future of your company.

From the first consumer contact with your brand, whether through a physical or virtual store , the shopping experience is a determining factor in whether or not the sale is closed. So, you need effective tactics to attract these customers and win them over.

What are sales strategies?

If I had to keep a good definition of sales strategies, I think it would be the following:

Keep in mind that as marketing evolves, new sales strategies emerge, but in the end they will all be oriented towards:

• Let people who don’t know us buy from us.
• That the customers of the competition buy from us.
• May our current customers continue to buy from us.

These are the ways we have to grow our business.

For example, imagine that you aim to reach €100,000 in turnover this year.

To reach that figure you are going to have to define a series of strategies and actions, right?

This is where we will have to take into account the most successful strategies to increase the sales we want.

For putting you in a situation.

Does the marketing mix and its 4 Ps sound familiar to you?

Price, product, promotion and distribution (placement)?

Well, when it comes to making a company’s digital marketing plan , one of the most important points is the promotion and communication part .

Types of sales strategies

There are different types of sales strategies, but we can mainly classify them into two large groups:

1-Online sales strategies.

2-Offline sales strategies.

In my opinion, in recent years we are so focused on online techniques that many times we forget about face-to-face marketing.

This for me is a serious mistake.

At least I do not conceive a marketing plan in which both techniques are separated .

I believe that they are absolutely complementary strategies and that they allow you not only to grow as a business, but also to reach a greater number of people and diversify the channels of income and customer acquisition.

This is synonymous with profitability in a business.

Now, there are also other types of strategies, such as:

1-Product sales strategies.

2-Service sales strategies.

You have to be clear that selling a product is not the same as marketing services .

They are sold in a very different way, and there are more effective strategies for one case than for the other.

In addition, the level of awareness of the target audience and the stage of the funnel in which they are every time we communicate also have an influence.

So, let’s see some examples of sales strategies for companies that can help you.

Examples of sales strategy

Creating a sales strategy is not a simple task that happens overnight. So, thinking about bringing inspirations for you to start your planning, we list three companies that have been successful with their sales strategies. Check out:

Anyone who thinks that big companies don’t make an effort to maintain their profits and differentiate themselves from the competition is wrong. To find the ideal persona for your product and stand out in the local market, Heineken invested in the use of geolocation and behavioral analysis of customers in the city of Porto Alegre (RS).

Through Lifestyles , a feature of the OnMaps tool, he segmented the inhabitants according to their habits and, soon after, cross-referenced the data and discovered the regions of the city that had the profile that best matched his product .

As a result, the company located hundreds of points of sale that were aligned with the strategy and, from there, products that had a low performance were activated in more than 80% of the opportunities analyzed.

Thinking about taking advantage of an important retail date, Udacity, an online course platform, used Black Friday to launch an exclusive campaign  and innovate sales strategies.

The company created a slogan “Where everyone sees discount, Udacity sees investment in your career”. Thus, it offered a special promotion on one course and added another discount for those who purchased a second course.

In addition, the campaign was carried out in several sales channels to test the omnichannel strategy . As a result, in addition to increasing sales, the brand was also able to measure the performance of its channels and create a growth plan for the following year.

According to the company’s Head of Growth in Brazil, Renata Zacarias, the campaign was a success and exceeded expectations. According to her, the campaign’s goal was to acquire 1,000 new students and the company, however, won twice as much.

How to build a sales strategy?

To create a sales strategy you need to know your customer acquisition and conversion process very well. And for that, it is necessary to understand the four phases of the consumer journey. Are they:

The first phase is customer prospecting . It is at this stage that you define who your persona is, that is, the semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer , and plan marketing strategies to attract it.

There are still companies that actively attract customers, through telephone and e-mail. But, nowadays, inbound marketing has proven to be more effective in seeking out more qualified leads (potential customers who provide some type of contact) — that is, more compatible with the solution offered and closer to the purchase decision.

That way, through content marketing combined with SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) and performance marketing , you can make customers come to you, instead of having to go to them.

For this, your brand must be present when the user searches for something related to your segment. So, it is worth investing in quality content on your blog and creating a relationship with the user from the first contact for more effective prospecting.

The lead qualification process is one of the most important in your sales strategy. This is because, after having captured potential customers, it is necessary to ensure that they are, in fact, a business opportunity .

So that your sales team does not waste time approaching leads that are not mature enough to close sales, it is essential that you establish a qualification process.

With the support of the marketing and pre-sales team, structure a nutrition flow with quality marketing emails, define who your MQLs and SQL s are and make a SLA (Service Level Agreement, or Service Level Agreement between marketing and sales).

In most companies that have a customer acquisition process through inbound marketing, it is at this stage that the commercial team actually comes into action.

After going through a nurturing and qualification process , the lead is already more prepared for a sales approach. Therefore, this is the moment when the salesperson must use the best sales techniques and apply mental triggers to convince the lead to close the purchase.

At this point, reinforce the benefits and advantages of your product or service over the competition, offer discount coupons or gifts, and be prepared to convert purchase objections and negotiate.

This is perhaps the most difficult phase of your sales strategy. After all, it’s time to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.

For this, it is necessary to build a relationship of trust with the consumer and convey the feeling that he can count on your company whenever he needs it.

So, offer good customer service , ask for feedback and listen carefully to each consumer. Also conduct satisfaction surveys using the NPS (Net Promoter Score) methodology and structure your after-sales area to be always available and focused on customer success .

Thus, in addition to having more chances of retaining customers , you gain more consumers from the promoter profile — who are willing to recommend your company in their social circle.

8 best sales strategies on the market

Now that you already know what a sales strategy is , how it works and what its phases are, how about knowing the main tactics to develop your business planning? Check out:

First of all, it is essential that you define your niche market and become an authority on it. In this way, you can get to know your target audience better and improve each stage of your sales funnel more assertively .

The more domain you have in your segment, the greater the chances of you attracting and winning more qualified leads for your business — and, consequently, more sales.

To begin any successful planning, you need to be clear about where you are and where you want to go.

For this, it is necessary to define objectives and goals in the short, medium and long term, and also to map out what you will need to achieve each one of them. In addition, know how to identify which are the most urgent demands and how to prioritize them.

Some tasks in the business process are repetitive and very manual, so optimizing your team’s routine with tools is essential to make the routine more agile and productive .

A good alternative to automate most tasks is to hire a CRM tool . This system facilitates the management of your customer base, helps your team to have more clarity of activities, in addition to optimizing several repetitive processes.

We already know that the process of attracting customers and converting them into sales is a team effort.

Therefore, it is essential that you integrate marketing and sales teams and create a routine in which information sharing is more agile and collaborative .

After all, the marketing team is responsible for generating qualified leads for the sales team to approach them in the best way. If the teams are not aligned, this process may not be successful.

Empowering your sales team with the best sales techniques can be your company’s differentiator.

Study your niche market and your audience, benchmark with other companies and learn the best sales approach to use with each customer. For this, take into account the interactions they have had with your brand since the first contact and also the interests shown so far.

Mental triggers are external stimuli received by the brain capable of directly influencing people ‘s decision making . That is, when used in the right way and at the right time, they can help convert more leads into customers.

They are used for many purposes, but mostly the goal is to generate desire , give the idea of ​​urgency and that leads need to act as soon as possible so they don’t miss the opportunity to buy your solution, as well as showing authority.

One of the most famous triggers is scarcity , which makes the customer speed up the purchase decision in the face of the risk of running out of the product (“Last units” and “Get yours before it runs out”).

You must have heard of storytelling , right? This technique is nothing more than storytelling to engage people and motivate them to take action .

In a business context, this is a strategy focused on audience engagement and that tends to mess with your persona ’s emotions and desires . Thus, the idea is to seek plots and narrative formats capable of holding people’s attention.

Being aware of technologies and how they can streamline or optimize your company’s processes is essential to maintain a more scalable and constantly growing business.

In this way, map tools, systems and methodologies that can help in the teams’ routine and support the execution of their sales strategy.