Category: Blog

Supposedly, it takes multiple contact with a prospect – studies say as many as eight are required – before a sale is closed.

In 2018, 75% of companies said closing more deals were amongst their top priorities. However, with 63% of prospects having little to no knowledge of a company before a sales rep approaches them, with a new product or service, it’s no surprise that 40% of sales people are finding closing the deal more challenging. So, how can direct marketing help?

Direct marketing is a great way of introducing your product or service across multiple touchpoint, over a variety of different platforms which include: direct mail, email marketing and telemarketing to name just a few. When delivered tactfully this marketing tactic will:

• Help you build relationships with new customers using personalised and targeted messaging
• Test the appeal of your new product or service
• Take your prospects or current customers on a brand journey that appeals to their own values
• Measure and advise you on which marketing platforms connect with your target audience best
• Provide customers with compelling content that will help nurture them through your sales cycle
• Indicate where prospects sit in your sales cycle using specific call to action that inform you if a prospect requires more information, a follow up call or a way of purchasing your product
• Allow you to base your sales strategy on fact and customer needs, increasing your overall success rate

So, how does direct marketing nurture your prospects through the sales cycle and at what stage does it need to be implemented if you want to reap the best reward?

We like to think of marketing and sales as the gatherer and the hunter. The gatherers job is to go out and make the initial contact with the prospect, discovering where they spend their time, what needs or problems control their impulses, and how best they can nurture this prospect to help them improve their situation. The hunter on the other hand is programmed to close the deal. Using the information/data the gatherer provides the hunter can increase his chances of success, he has inside knowledge of where the prospect can be found, he understands what problem areas are best to attack and he knows the prospect is at a stage where they feel safe enough to take a closer look.

In our 7 step sales and direct marketing diagram you can see exactly how we optimise this integrated approach:

We have learnt that both direct marketing and sales need one another to be truly successful, so, investing in a strategy that aligns the two is a wise move heading into the new financial year.

There’s even evidence that supports this approach, according to 2018 statistics, companies who better align their sales and marketing teams experience 208% more revenue from their marketing efforts, 73% agree their buyer’s journey has a higher conversion rate, 38% have higher sales wins and 36% experience higher customer retention rates.

Looking to better align your sales and marketing strategy, increase customer loyalty and boost your ROI?
Air Marketing Group work closely with their sister company, Roots to Market, to deliver multi touchpoint campaigns that benefit our clients bottom line. To get in touch call: 03452413038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk.

On average, for every £1 our clients invest they achieve an £18 ROI. Are you ready to see results?

When I first started working at Air I found myself in a whole other world. I had landed a job in a fun, dynamic and rewarding start-up where we worked hard and reaped the returns. Air has a culture that we all want to be a part of and is a company that you truly want to contribute to. But when I started one thing did have me stumped – the method of permission based selling.

I won’t lie, I was dubious at first. It was different to anything I had ever known and the sales person inside of me was so well versed in the hard sale and simply working to turn a “no” into a “yes”. This new tactic of asking the prospect for permission at various points to progress the call simply seemed alien to me, I just wanted to get my information across, follow up on a lead and close the sale. However, I quickly came to see the method in its madness.

Many telemarketing companies conform to the stereotype of cold callers – they’re more interested in their numbers, not the people on the end of the line. At Air, we’re different. Permission based selling is a non-traditional selling technique in which sales people reach out to prospects after they have received permission from them to do so via opt in forms, email or calls etc. This method allows us the opportunity to be professional and polite but also assertive when building rapport and developing a 2-way relationship with potential clients. In turn, this often ends up saving us and our clients more time and money. This is for two reasons:

1. People love to buy, but hate being sold to. Today, prospects prefer a personal approach, they want you to be consultative and guide them through the sale with clear expertise.
2. Instead of pushing a hard sell that fails to close, by taking the time to read a prospects response and ending the conversation when you don’t strike a chord you will spend less time chasing unlikely leads.

So, how does permission based selling fit into our sales process?

At Air, we understand that no one thing will make a sales call great, as different prospects will respond to different tactics. Cold calling is about the combination of many small things that increase your chances of achieving the right outcome – and in my opinion, permission based selling is one to be practised.

Opinion piece by Shaun Weston, Operations Director

2019 is set to be a year of exciting developments in the wonderful world of marketing – clients can expect interesting developments in personalisation and interaction. After having a read of Forbes’s Agency Council predictions for the year, one thing stuck out to us – Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Love it or hate it, AI will increasingly become a part of our lives over the next year and beyond. From homing in the abilities of voice searches on our Alexa’s and Google devices, to increasingly sophisticated personalisation algorithms, we’d better get used to a robot telling us what it is we want. Not that we’re complaining, if they can tell us what to have for dinner or what to wear we’d save hours of our time!

So, what can AI help SME businesses with?

1. Creating and generating content

Yes, you read that right, machines can now assist with your content creation. Now, they can’t write the whole thing for you, there’ll still be a copywriter huddled over a cup of tea writing the main bulk of your content, but they can help. Using information and data, AI can write reports and simple news – the tools currently on offer include Articoolo and Quill. And they aren’t to be sniffed at, some big names are already using them from the BBC to CBS.

2. Curating content

Oh yes, AI can’t only help with the creation of your content, but also the curation! It can ‘connect’ with readers and point them towards better, more relevant content for them. Think of the suggested items on websites such as Amazon or the suggested shows on Netflix – we know you’re all guilty of falling down that rabbit warren! But this isn’t only for the big players, small businesses can use AI to point clients towards relevant blog pages, products and services in order to keep them engaged.

3. Email Marketing

We know the pains that some SME businesses can feel with email marketing, you spend ages creating the perfect content  for your audience for them to go unopened or unanswered – AI can help! Using data and information of client interactions with your emails, it can suggest the best times of day to contact prospects, how frequently to send marketing material to them and what they might actually want to receive. Using tools like Phrasee, you can also reduce human error and allow it to help you with A/B testing, it can even generate subject lines and cognitive content!

4. Digital Advertising

Personalised adverts, whether you find them creepy or crazily helpful, they’re here to stay and why not? They’re handy! By analysing information such as your interests and what demographics you fall into, they allow companies to get right to their target audience and best asses what exactly to send them. Why not look into something like Google Ads to see what digital advertising can do for your business?

5. Web Design

Tired of the to and fro between yourself and web developers or programmers? There’s AI that can help with that too! You can now use apps, such as Huula, to develop and build websites dependant on certain criterion such as images, text and call to actions quickly and often for a lot cheaper.

6. Chatbots

We’ve all been there, aimlessly scrolling around a website trying to get in touch with the business to help us only to have to wait for someone to come back to you. Chatbots can help here, by having an automated system in place, customers can get a more immediate response and hopefully solve their issues quickly and effectively.

So, let’s look at the Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Personalised and relevant –

Let’s face facts, many of us are time poor so any time we do have is precious. The right personalised marketing can be relevant and helpful to us, businesses must understand that customers want content tailored just to them, not for the masses. By having marketing material that is personalised and targeted towards a certain target audience or customer issue means that wants and reassurances can be solved quickly, saving you and them time and money.

• Streamlined marketing efforts –

Programmes can use customer data to quickly find prospects that are more likely and ready to convert, meaning that you don’t spend limited time and money chasing after improbable leads.

• Personalisation –

It’s been proven that customers prefer personalisation and AI can help you to achieve this seamlessly – no one will feel spammed if marketing material is clearly relevant and can help them or improve their lives.

Cons:

• Chatbot scepticism –

Users don’t like clearly unsophisticated chatbots – especially older or less techy savvy users. When it is obvious that there isn’t a human anywhere on the other end of the conversation people can become untrusting.

• Still a need for humans –

Creativity is an inherently human trait – robots can’t develop thoughts/ concepts, make creative decisions or use their (non-existent) imaginations.

• Algorithms can be wrong –

We all know that tech does go wrong, just think of those annoying bugs you get in apps or the times you’ve been told to ‘just turn it on and off again’. Humans are complex and not everything can be solved with an equation and a robot.

So, in our opinion, it is clear that it is worthwhile having an open mind when it comes to AI. At the end of the day, like with everything in life, you never know what will work for you until you give it a try. But like many new trends, this won’t solve everything for you – humans, with their curious and creative minds, are still needed to drive the AI world.

If you feel that you would like some guidance in finding your way around the world of marketing, or if you just want to chat about what is potentially out there for you, then get in touch. Call: 01392 796702 or email: contact@roots2market.co.uk.

P.s. no robots were harmed in the writing of this article; the copywriter was well watered with tea.

If done right, telemarketing is a great way to provide an interactive and personal sales experience to your prospects. With a good telemarketing team, like TeamAir, behind your sales activity you can create immediate rapport with your prospects and, in turn, be able to gauge their interest in your product or service.

By using an outsourced telemarketing team, these rewards are further by freeing up your internal sales team to do what they do best – making sales!

However, a telemarketing campaign is not free and before you start you want to ensure that your new team know what they’re doing. So, what should you consider before beginning a telemarketing campaign?

1. Target Market

Of course, the first thing to consider when making any sale is the people you are selling to.  Who are they? What kind of profile do they fit into? At Air, we sit down with our clients to analyse who their target market is, what type of industry they want us to target and what level of decision maker they want us to speak to. For us, the most important aspects are who and why. We don’t make any calls before we have created an in-depth company and prospect profile.

2. The Script

We need to establish what it is you are selling and what we are going to be pitching. From Fintechs to Soft Drinks Companies, we have worked with a variety of businesses and so we understand the importance of a perfectly tailored script. When TeamAir are dialling, they will know your offering, its USPs, why a company should use you and not your competitor and how they should engage with a prospect. Engagement is key, so we establish the best route to success by implementing a two-way, consultative, permission-based conversation.

3. Data

Strong data is key to strong sales. Whether you have your own data, or we need to source it for you, we offer a data cleansing service to ensure that you’re hitting exactly the target market that you want to hit. If we are sourcing data for you, we want to have a clear understanding of the data profile you need, from there we look to our UK data providers. Any data that we source belongs to you, this is why we are more than happy to build relationships between our providers and our clients, this allows you to get the best out of your time working with us.

4. Objections

For telemarketers, objection handling is a fact of life – it’ll never go away. However, at Air, we make sure that our diallers are as knowledgeable as possible with regards to your product and ensure that they are armed with information to handle the relevant objections that arise. We also follow the diffuse > statement > question formula. By diffusing any negative pressure, TeamAir are able to make statements which switch the focus of the conversation and ask open questions which allow it to flow once more.

5. Engagement process

Once a prospect is engaged, what are you looking to do with them, book a phone call or a face to face appointment? But more importantly, what does is take to qualify a lead? These questions are at the forefront of our campaign strategy as is it essential that we know your end goal. If booking appointments is something you would like us to help with then we ask for access to your calendars, this allows us to efficiently provide you with any details which you’ll need to know for appointments booked for you. With regards to lead qualification, that’s all down to you, you set the criteria and we follow, making sure to engage with the prospects who matter to you.

 

If you feel that your sales team could benefit from the support of an expert outsourced telemarketing team, then get in touch today – TeamAir are always on hand to help. Call: 0345 2413038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk

In the era of GDPR, unwarranted contact should be a distant memory. To be truly business savvy is now, and always should have been, demonstrated by a company’s ability to target customers based on their wants and needs, not your own. Sales are increasingly determined by the trust that a customer has for a brand, if you are honest and transparent with them upfront they are more likely to buy into you as a brand. People value a brand they can trust.

A simple and effective way to build a trustworthy brand is by implementing a segmentation strategy – it shows that you have taken the time to understand the various groups within your target market. We’ve created the infographic below to highlight 5 key reasons to segment your data and customers:

But many businesses are still failing to hit the mark, with 20% of respondents to an Avention survey feeling that segmentation was one of the biggest challenges facing their organisation. Segmentation is a tried and tested means of delivering results to your customers. We only have to look to email campaigns, where Mailchimp showed that clicks are 74.53% higher than non-segmented campaigns, to see these results.

By taking the time to highlight the different needs and barriers that may be important to your potential clients, you will be better able to sell to them. Not only will it allow you to understand them, but it will allow you to forge personal relationships with them through meaningful interactions – which is essential in the telemarketing industry in particular. So, how can you segment your customers?

However, it is important to remember the earlier point about customer trust. With increasingly personalised sales and marketing materials out there it isn’t enough to take your data and simply spilt everyone into superficial segments. You need to gain insight into the people behind the numbers, otherwise your will simply be working from conjecture.

To gain insight and create genuine, informed personas for these groups, it is vital that you demonstrate a desire to know more when in conversation with your prospects. It is with this in mind that the scripts used by TeamAir are only there as prompts, we encourage our BDEs to engage in meaningful, personal conversations when on the phone. This helps us to nurture a sense of human connection whilst carrying out the vital research that is needed to lead a successful campaign and enrich the data that is held.

If you feel that you could benefit from working with a reputable, award winning telemarketing company, who work with a customer-centric focus, get in touch. You can call us: 0345 241 3038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk.

Photo by Javi Lorbada on Unsplash

However your sales team operates, there’s a place in their work for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. A properly constructed PPC account will act like a pack of automated hunters, sniffing out potential leads from every search anyone does on the internet, and chasing them into your website. The trick is to train these hunters to bring those potential leads into your existing pipeline as seamlessly as possible.

Singling searchers out to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time involves planning your strategy in advance and then adapting it to the data you acquire. Too many PPC accounts simply show the same message to everyone who searches for a vaguely relevant keyword (or an overly specific keyword). You need to understand the mindset of a potential lead and learn how to recognise their intent from what they type into that search engine. Once you’ve learned this, you can herd them into your existing sales pipeline at the point it matches their decision-making process and significantly increase your chance of converting a lead into a sale.

Fitting Leads into Your Pipeline

If you sell office equipment and someone types, “office equipment,” into Google’s search box, then you can be fairly certain they’re close to the beginning of pipeline. They know they want office furniture and they’re seeing what’s out there. These are the people you can flag your services to, let them become aware of what you have to offer. If you’re in a complex industry where public perception is lacking, you can use this opportunity to become the voice of authority to them, increasing the chances they will come back to you when they are closer to making a final decision. These people are those you fit into the top of your pipeline.

Longer, more specific searches tend to come after someone has been thinking for a while or has a definite and often immediate need. If someone types in, “adjustable height computer monitor bracket,” it’s fairly likely that they need an adjustable height computer monitor bracket and they need it soon. These people come in around the middle of your pipeline.

The longest tail keywords are from those searchers who need to be herded towards the bottom of the pipeline. “Brand-X Model-Y monitor bracket next day delivery,” is about as specific as it’s possible to get. You know this person has made the decision of what they are getting, they are just looking for where to get it from. They’ve even included a handy USP that you can hook; “Next Day Delivery.” These are the people who you can drop exactly what they want into their lap.

Getting the right message to these people requires having your PPC account structured correctly. For the broader searches you have to use broader messages. As the user intent becomes more specific with longer tail search queries, you can narrow down the message you convey (both in the ad copy and on the landing page the user is directed to). At every stage it doesn’t hurt to have the user get in touch; a simple call back form is ideal, the shorter the better, just a name and a phone number is all you need – once you have those you have far more control in the sales process.

Matching Tactics to Intent

Unfortunately, it’s not always this simple to slot searchers into their correct slot on the funnel. Although it’s safer to assume that they’re higher in the funnel, the broader search terms make it harder to infer the true intent of the person typing it. The best you can do is give them options: Sitelinks on your ad allows you to link people through to other pages which might be of interest. These sitelinks give the user the opportunity to find their own place in your sales pipeline.

For example: If someone searches for, “office equipment,” you can show them a link to your home page, which is broad enough to have something of relevance to them on it. But on top of that you can have links to your products catalogue, to your most popular lines, and to your services/FAQ page which explains that you offer not only next-day delivery but a free installation service as well. And again, give a quick and simple means for them to give you their contact info at every step.

The Remarkable Power of Remarketing

Another tool in populating your sales pipeline from PPC is remarketing. Targeting specific ads to people who have already seen your website, or a specific page on your website, or performed certain actions means you can recapture their attention. This is a balancing act, you have to have an audience of sufficient size to guarantee anonymity.

Typically, the best way to accomplish this you need a single list of everyone who has visited your website, which you can then break down into progressively smaller groups based on the user action – the first tier may be all those who have visited any page in a particular category, and then those who have looked at more than one product. By creating progressively more targeted audiences you always have a working audience to work with, but if you have sufficient traffic for the smaller audiences you can use more carefully constructed messages. More carefully targeted messages always perform stronger.

 

Exactly how you integrate PPC into your existing sales pipeline does depend greatly on your own procedures, but the potential value is universal. The real knack lies in picking the best targets out of the herd of online searchers and potential customers. Only a small segment will match as a lead, and sorting these out to determine their place in your sales pipeline can be tricky, but very rewarding. Get it right and you’ll fuel your sales pipeline with a regular stream of leads across all stages – that’s enough to keep any sales team happy!

 

Guest Blog written for Air by Aquamarine Search and Social Agency

Are you thinking about your inbound marketing?

The backbone of any successful inbound strategy is tactical lead nurturing, to encourage your prospects through the sales cycle. But have you thought about the best way to approach this to gain the maximum returns?

Here are our top 5 tips on lead nurturing:

1. It’s all about the right content, to the right person, at the right time

Content marketing is an extremely powerful tool if the content is relevant and used effectively. But for content to be relevant to your target audience and support a nurture process, it must be based around your prospects needs and pain points.

Timing is key in a nurture campaign. Individuals will go through a nurture process at different times – depending on the urgency of their needs, their position within the business and how they interact with your content and brand. To move individuals through the process and ultimately down the sales funnel you need to encourage them with the right content and help satisfy their buyer needs.

* At the top of the funnel your content needs to be introducing the brand and providing your relevancy. Using content that answers top level questions and concerns.

* In the middle of the funnel your content will need to be in greater depth and detail. By this stage the prospect is interested in the initial information and they are looking to find out more, make sure you are the right fit and explore what you have to offer.

* Once you reach the bottom of the funnel your content needs to guide the prospect to what the best option is for them and convince them that the journey has been worth it, and you are the best provider for them. At this stage you may consider an offer or some form of encouragement to get them over the line.

2. Let your email nurture do the hard work for you

The beauty of many email platforms is that automation is a built-in feature – you just need to make it effective.

Automation allows you to make email nurture do the hard work for you. You can plan out a whole journey and once the setup is complete, your prospect can merrily glide through, experiencing what is relevant to them.

The automation can be as sophisticated or simple as you feel is necessary. But the real bonus is that once individuals start the journey, you begin to collate data about your prospects that will help you make informed decisions in the future.

3. Make sure your sales and marketing effort is aligned

It’s the age old ‘chicken and egg’ scenario – marketing need sales to assist in chasing and closing leads AND sales need marketing to create the brand, credibility and demand in the first place. So it goes without saying that you need to make sure sales and marketing are aligned when carrying out inbound marketing.

If sales are not aware of the effort going into filling the funnel, they won’t be ready for when the leads start coming through. Having a secure CRM system in place to help manage the lead marketing activity to inform the sales team of updates is also well worth the investment.

4. Prioritise follow-ups

Everyone wants to feel valued – whether you are looking to spend your own personal money or invest for your business. That feeling of being valued translates into nurturing because if we can see an individual is expressing the right signals in your business then we know they should be followed up with a call.

Nurturing is a less invasive way of doing this. You may wish to call initially to qualify where they are in the sales funnel and establish if they are the right fit for your target audience. It is worth noting that there are only a few cases where they will engage to buy from you there and then. So, free up your sales team to actually convert those that are ready and instead send those that aren’t on the nurture journey for follow-ups that are informative, educational and encouraging.

5. Have you considered lead scoring?

Lead scoring is an intelligent way to sort hot leads from those that seem unengaged. It allows you to assess the best nurture journey for an individual and un-stick them from the sales funnel.

Many marketing platforms offer the ability (with the right know-how) to implement lead scoring, which will give you even more insight into your prospects. Are they engaging with the website, your emails, your social activity? If not, why not? Can they be invigorated, or do you need to approach them differently?

This information then informs your targeted marketing approach to reach prospects likely of converting and nurture those less likely.

Feeling inspired but don’t feel that you have the resources or expertise in-house to execute this? Get in touch with us today! We’d love to help you generate more inbound opportunities using our skills to help your business grow. Get in touch today on 01392 796702 or email contact@roots2market.co.uk.

Today, very few businesses are one-of-a-kind. So, what makes a customer choose your company’s product or service over your competitors?

The truth, it’s not necessarily what you’re selling that sets you apart and grabs a customer’s attention, but the messaging you choose to focus on.

This can be achieved by implementing an effective sales strategy around a “Unique Selling Proposition” that differentiates your business and resonates with your desired customers. When your company goals and values match those of your desired customers you can bet your last penny that they will buy into your business over your competitors.

 

So, what is a USP?

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is a statement that describes how your product, service or company is different and hopefully better than your competitions.

Historically, global brands have presented USPs in their slogans or expressed them in their positioning statements to make themselves more valuable to their customer group. You may have heard of theses famous examples:

Rolls Royce

“Trusted to deliver excellence; like nothing else on earth”

FedEx Corporation

“When it absolutely, positively has to be overnight”

TOMS Shoes

“We give a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you purchase”

 

How do you establish yours?

Being ‘unique’ is rarely a strong USP and rarely true. Therefore, you must put your focus on an aspect which your desired customer cares about, otherwise your messaging won’t be nearly as effective. A compelling USP should:

• Focus on the values of your ideal customer: Your desired customer must feel that you truly understand their needs and are therefore the best company to offer them the solution to their problem.
• Assertive and defensible: Create a USP that encourages a consumer to make a case as to why they shouldn’t choose your competitor.
• Leverage your industries reputation: Position yourself as the game changer in your industry. For example, the telemarketing industry struggles with a lingering reputation for being disruptive in favour of generating dishonest profits. However, knowing this about our own industry, Air have created a platform where our clients can see exactly how much time we spend on their campaigns minute by minute. This platform is truly transparent and shows us to be a collaborative partner who delivers exactly what we have promised our clients. By creating a USP that has changed the game of our industry we are now considered one of the leading telemarketing companies in the UK.
• Avoid the “superstar effect”: A great USP is not claiming that your business is the best. How many times have you gone to a new city and seen “Best Restaurant” plastered on the doorway of multiple businesses? Companies often strive to be the best, but the first thing your USP should strive for is difference.
• More than a slogan: While a slogan is one way your USP can be communicated, it’s also something your organisation should embody in other areas of your businesses. Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk.

 

Remember you’re still here to sell!

Just as Relationship Marketing is as much about the marketing as is it about the relationships, the same applies for creating a Unique Selling Proposition; it’s a form of differentiation that needs to be built around selling more products and services, not just to make your business into a quirky brand that stands out but can’t get traction.

1. Remember each piece of marketing material or conversation must say “Buy this product or service, for this specific benefit.”
2. Your proposition must be one that your competition cannot or does not offer; It must be unique either to your business or in a claim that your competitors have not made themselves.
3. Your proposition must attract new customers and be created with the intent to sell, not just stand out.

 

Would you like more help establishing your USP? At Air Marketing Group we help our clients form and execute USPs that really resonate with their desired customers, deliver rewarding ROI and differentiate their business in the market place. To get the most out of your USP contact our experienced team today: contact@air-marketing.co.uk or phone 0345 241 3038.

The lead up to Christmas is a fun and festive period. The office is draped with tinsel and twinkling lights, the team are adorned with Christmas jumpers and the Christmas tree is waiting in the door way to greet clients. But what about sales?

Whilst this time of year is fun, it is also stressful and a little tiring. With most people fixated on getting the perfect present, sales can often feel a little harder to win. So how can you keep the momentum of your sales and your team going over the festive period?

1. Embrace it

This is one is simple but effective. Have fun, it’s Christmas! Your team have been working hard all year and, whilst sales are important, their happiness comes first – happy team = happy clients! Now, this doesn’t mean you need to have an office party every day of December, but the odd bit of festive fun wouldn’t go unappreciated. Throw in a Christmas jumper day, some mince pies, after work drinks and maybe even the simple pleasure of an advent calendar. They’re all little things but they’ll make your team feel valued.

2. Be personable

Don’t just embrace the festivities with your staff, extend this to clients. Ask people about their festive plans, you may not want to talk about their child’s starring role as a donkey in their school nativity, but it is important to them and therefore important for your business. You could also employ a festive social media campaign, take photos of the office fun and share it with your clients – let them see the people behind the products and they’ll more than likely buy into your warm company climate.

3. Build your pipeline

Whilst people may not be looking to buy new products right before, or right after Christmas, it doesn’t mean you can’t work to build relationships with new and existing clients so that you can start strong in the new year. Many businesses will slow down all together during this time, so make the most of the quieter market and get your foot in the door. Implement a gentler nurture email or social media campaign so that prospects know you’re there to help but don’t feel overwhelmed at a busy time of year.

4. Take the time to re-strategize

A slower sales period isn’t always a bad thing. It can give you back some much-needed time to sit back and re-evaluate what went well and not so well over the year. By focusing on finding out where your efforts best lie, you can come back stronger in the New Year with ideas ready to go and a team who know what they are aiming for.

5. Team initiatives and incentives

Engage with your team, make sure they know where they are headed and what you expect of them over this period. If they generate strong leads or close a certain amount of sales by the end of the week then reward them, have buzz meetings where you shout about their successes. Include them in meetings or catch up with them where you can to cultivate a transparent and honest culture.

6. Set a theme for the New Year

Looking back on the year, set a theme or goal for the New Year and get your team to begin working on this in December. Do you want to better your sales techniques, customer service, team culture or client relationships? Tell your team that this is what you’re looking to work towards and get them to implement this in their day to day activities.

Team Air hope you have a merry and successful Christmas period. If you feel like you could benefit from any of our services, then why not get in touch to see how we can help you in the New Year? Call: 0345 241 3038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk