selling tactics

Smart selling tactics (Part 2 of 2)

3. Emotions speak a thousand words – There is a reason why UNICEF shows pictures of children holding guns or of them starving. If they didn’t, a line like “Bad water kills more children than war” would not have even half the effect it does. The whole point is to provoke emotions in people. Emotions are strong motivating factors and using them effectively will have a positive impact on your sales. Work on bringing emotions to your sales copy, images and videos that you use to promote your product.

4. Get rid of garbage – If you want to be successful, sell only good products. Just because you got a contact that can get you 1000 mugs for $200 doesn’t mean that you should grab them and sell them for a decent profit. Check out the products first. Ensure that they are of good quality and design. Then figure out if people will want to buy them. Once you know that you have a good thing in your hands, then you can focus all your efforts in selling them. Remember, it takes very little to destroy a reputation and lot to build it up again. So don’t jeopardize your reputation.

5. Be decent – Don’t spam, don’t do drive by ad postings on forums and social networking sites. In short, don’t do anything that is unethical and annoying. Use the right mediums in the right ways. Uploading a video of a hot artist on YouTube which flashes adverts for your product incessantly throughout the video might seem like a smart idea at first. But it is first of all illegal to upload material which does not belong to you and second of all people will get really annoyed with you and avoid you like the plague.

selling tactics

Smart selling tactics (part 1 of 2)

Hard selling no longer works. Don’t try it and don’t waste your time on it. Ads are everywhere – when you open your newspaper, switch on your computer or TV, when you are walking down the street and in your mail (electronic or otherwise). People are now oblivious to ads and no longer respond to them, unless the ad is extraordinarily creative and provokes interest. Coming up with one of those is nearly impossible for the online businessperson, because they take time and are, frankly, not at all easy.

So what can you do? Switch to smart selling tactics. Attack your customers in different ways; advertise without advertising!

1. Sharing is caring –Share some knowledge and build up a relationship with people. This can be through social media, blogs, forums, your own website etc. Make those things into interesting places which people like to come to for advice or information. Make your products visible on these locations but do not hard sell. Let them be there in “oh by the way I have these things too if you are interested” sort of way. As you build up a loyal set of followers they will notice the products you are selling. If you have built up a decent level of trust, your sales will start coming in.
2. You’re the one that I want! – Who are you selling to and who do you want to sell to? These are very important questions. The first evaluates who your current market is and the second defines who your market should be. Sometimes you may find that your current set of customers isn’t who you think they are. In this case, it may be time to re-evaluate your approach. There is no point selling an Xbox, for example, with sales copy like “a clever little device that will keep your evenings filled with entertainment”.Unless you are trying to sell to grandparents, this is the wrong approach. Tailor your sales copy to interest your target market and avoid the hard sell angle.