It’s a common mistake small businesses make: they think if they produce a product, offer a service or build a business, customers will come. In very few instances, though, do businesses actually generate revenue without marketing campaigns and sales tools – no matter how appealing their products or services are. Without these essential marketing and sales elements, your business could become one of the 80% of small businesses in Australia that fail within the first 5 years of operation.
Don’t become a statistic: find out what’s involved in a marketing campaign; discover how to embed sales tools into your everyday business activities; put them to use to get money into your bank now! In this article, Maria Anderson, MD of Sustainable Marketing Services Australia, provides an overview and shares her top tips for marketing campaigns and sales tools to help generate revenue.
What are marketing campaigns? 
Marketing campaigns are strategic activities designed to influence existing and/or potential customers to buy a product or service from you now. They range from simple campaigns – like a direct mail with an offer and a follow-up phone call, or Google Adwords linking to a special landing page, to elaborate campaigns- like combined advertising, editorials, direct email to customers, competitions, website banner, campaign web page and in-store promotional material.
Generally, the more ‘integrated’ campaigns are, which means the more mediums they use to communicate the same message, the more successful they will be at generating sales. Integrated campaigns allow you to reach more target markets and increase recall and action because of the number of times people see your message.
What are sales tools?
Sales tools are simple processes you can embed into your everyday business activities to help generate sales. Sales tools include sales scripts, automated follow-up emails to enquiries, regular newsletters, sales presentations (brochures, power point or iPad presentations), sales flyers, proposal templates, client plans and research tools to qualify prospects.
Top 3 marketing campaign and sales tools tips
1) Start slow
Embed simple sales tools, like phone scripts and auto response emails to enquiries, into your everyday business – one at a time. (One of our clients recently increased their enquiry conversion rate from 1/5 to 4/5 by creating an auto-response email to enquiries!)
2) Create a newsletter
A regular newsletter to your current customers will help increase sales from your existing market. We generally recommend sending newsletters every 2 weeks or monthly. A good content rule to follow with newsletters is 80% value add information and 20% promotion. You can supplement your newsletter with product/service showcase emails on a monthly or quarterly basis.
3) Implement quarterly marketing campaigns
Plan ahead and implement a new campaign each quarter. This will establish a sustainable sales pipeline and revenue stream over the course of the year. Remember to include a variety of marketing activities and mediums for maximum results.
Case Study
Anderson Camera Repairs, a 50+ years established business, was so busy delivering great camera repair services that they forgot to continue marketing. They started to lose customers to an aggressive interstate competitor. They needed help to win back previous customers with whom they had lost touch and also generate new prospects.
Sustainable Marketing’s solution
Sustainable Marketing developed a marketing campaign and sales tools which included:
· a direct mail targeted at Qld photographers, reminding them how Anderson’s can help and testing two different offers (10% off / free freight) – freight was the winner
· researching new prospects then developing an outbound call sales script and calling campaign to identified prospects to help raise brand awareness, identify new leads, encourage them to sign up for their newsletter and to book meetings with Anderson’s manager.
· a follow-up email to the phone calls
· a sales flyer for the Managers’ meetings to increase response rates from the calls
· an outbound call sales script and calling campaign to identified previous customers who hadn’t used Anderson’s for 2+ years to glean information about why they weren’t using Anderson’s, to remind them of Anderson’s services and to encourage them to start using Anderson’s again
The results
It’s still only early days, but already the marketing campaign and sales tools have helped to:
· generate 95 new leads
· secure 9 new customers
· bring back 5 old customers.
How to get started with your marketing campaigns and sales tools
Sustainable Marketing Services can help you increase your sales and get more money into the bank NOW with:
1) Individually tailored, fully integrated marketing campaigns and sales tools: including elements such as phone scripts, sales flyers, sales presentations, brochures, email responders, direct mail letters and more, starting at only $2,500.
2) DIY ‘Marketing Campaign and Sales Tools How-To Guide’: easy to follow, and affordable for any business at only $45. Can be supplemented with a one hour consultation and review with Sustainable Marketing for only $125.
3) Copywriting and copy editing: to develop your marketing and sales materials into the hardest working members of your sales team!
Don’t be fooled into thinking if you build it they will come. Let Sustainable Marketing help you stimulate sales and get money into the bank with effective marketing campaigns and sales tools.
Call Maria Anderson today on 1300 699 085 to discuss a tailored marketing campaign to help you generate your sales NOW! Visit sustainablemarketing.com.au for more information.
Maria Anderson is the founding director of Sustainable Marketing and a certified practicing marketer with the Australian Marketing Institute.
