Increase your Sales by Caring
By: Annie DiMatteo

Everybody wants to increase their sales, and is looking for the secret on how to do so. Well, the secret is, there is no such thing. The best way to increase your sales, in my opinion, is really quite simple:

CARE; Genuinely Care.
Care about your customers.
Care about your company.
Care about your products/offerings.
Care about your coworkers.

Simply care. When you truly care, people will know. People like to do business with people that care, bottom line.

I went to GNC yesterday to buy a multi-vitamin. I normally don’t even shop at GNC, as it seems a little extreme just for one basic vitamin. I decided to stop in anyway, as it was in the same parking lot I was at the time, and would be a quick, convenient stop. What I intended on being a $20 trip turned into a $160 trip. Why? Because it is actually FUN to do business with people that care – it is FUN to spend money with a company and owner that cares!!

I was in GNC for a couple minutes, perusing the aisles, looking for any ol’ multi-vitamin. The woman working that day (presumably the owner), asked me (in a light, non-salesy way) if she could help me find anything. I let her know I needed a multi-vitamin, and wasn’t sure of what would be good for me. I expected her to point me in the direction of the multi-vitamins, and be on her way, but this was not the case. Instead she talked to me about my daily activities, my fitness level, and my diet, and really educated me on the different multi-vitamins for women. She consulted a book to check specifics on how many milligrams of specific vitamins and minerals my specific body should get, based on my health and lifestyle. She then helped me select a multitude of other health related items, all targeted towards helping me achieve my personal health goals. She was friendly, attentive, and incredibly knowledgeable. She had a very apparent passion and zest for her career choice, and for life. This excitement was very contagious, and in turn made me equally excited, immediately altering my otherwise dreary mood for the day.

I ended up spending 800% more than I had planned, but I felt great about the purchase, and plan to return to the same GNC for all my future health/vitamin needs. As I was leaving the store, she asked me my name. When I told her, she said very genuinely, that she loved the name and it reminded her of the main character in her favorite movie – Sleepless in Seattle. What a unique thing to say, especially after the transaction had already been completed. I left the store smiling. This woman really genuinely cared about the products she was offering, and cared about me. I just dropped $160 at GNC, and I left with a big smile on my face…case in point.

Next time you are pondering what big sales strategy you can implement in order to boost your sales, take a look in the mirror and see what your customers are seeing – do you care? Care about your customers; really genuinely care about them, and they’ll stick around. Not only will they stick around, but they will probably spend more in the process. Even when times are tough, people are willing to be brand loyal to those select few companies that treat them like a million bucks…and actually mean it.

What are you doing to show your customers that you really care?

About the Author:
Annie DiMatteo is the Strategic Marketing Coordinator of Webolutions Inc. Webolutions Inc. provides expertise in Denver web site design, search engine optimization, website tracking, strategic marketing, online marketing and more.

Article Stars: articlestars.com

Last time I talked about using conversation mining to improve your product, now I’m going to address how to improve your marketing materials as a result mining. What you find during mining through the conversations may influence how your describe your offerings in your marketing materials. In addition you may find opportunities to create new marketing materials that clear up questions often asked about your product online. You may even find a whole new audience to which you can market your product.

When creating marketing materials you tend to do it from your point of view and not from your customer’s point of view. You may use buzzwords or other language that is inherent to your industry. By mining the language used by people that use your products or your competitions products, you will begin to learn the language they use to describe your product. Maybe you call your computer a notebook computer, but find through mining your data everyone calls it a laptop. By adjusting your language you are more likely to engage and connect with your audience easier.

Through mining you may find that when people are in the research stage of looking at your and your competitions offerings, they may be posting the same questions over and over again. This means that you are not providing the answers to your audience’s questions or at least they are not able to find the answers. Consider creating marketing materials that specifically address these questions in a way that is easy for the audience to understand. This could be a buyer’s guide or a competitive comparison chart that gives the prospect the information they need to make the decision to purchase your product. Maybe provide a video or other type of demonstration of the product being used.

Like I mentioned in the product development post, it is possible that while mining the conversations, you may find that a different audience is using your product than you expected. This creates the opportunity to learn more about this market and create a campaign to target them specifically. It’s also possible that people have found a different use for your product than you market. Again, grasp this opportunity to leverage this information to your advantage and market this secondary use to drive more sales.

Use the information that you have mined to gain a competitive advantage and engage with the marketplace like never before. What you can find by mining the data goes far beyond reputation monitoring. Help me out, what other ways can conversation mining help with a company’s creative planning?