A silent phone and an empty inbox can strike fear into every business owner’s mind. Perhaps the economy has affected buyer habits. Maybe a new competitor has entered the market, or perhaps you need to reach a new audience altogether to generate some much-needed sales. Regardless, you rely on a steady stream of leads to keep your sales pipeline full, keep your employees busy, and maintain the bottom line. When things are slow in business, it’s actually a great opportunity to experiment and try new tactics. Getting creative with your marketing strategy can help you generate new leads quickly and fill that slow period with newfound revenue. Here are five ways to generate sales quickly during slow periods in your business.
Offer a discount
A unique offer or a small discount can be all someone needs to finally convert. They may have been watching you for quite some time, and that was the push they needed to go and seal the deal and try out your product or service. I recommend putting together a valuable deal with a time constraint here. For example, you can offer an exclusive hundred dollars off for the month or throw in an extra benefit whenever they purchase your product or service. You can even do something creative, like have a contest, giveaway, etc. Once you have your discount put together, push it out on all of your marketing channels, create a popup on your website, write a blog post about it, Post on social media, send the offer to your email list, and let everybody in your network know.
Run a paid ad
It may seem counterintuitive to spend money when things are slow, but paid ads, especially on a platform like Google Ads, can be a great way to get leads in the door quickly. If you spend $1 and make $2, then that was an investment well spent. If you are in an industry where people frequently search for what you do online, Google ads is a great avenue to start running “Pay-Per-Click Ads.” This is where you only get charged whenever someone interacts with your ad. Google ads also have an insightful analytics dashboard so that you can see exactly where your money is going. You can even set up something called “conversions” that track whenever somebody accomplishes your desired action. Whether it’s submitting a contact form or calling your phone number, you can easily track your ROI here. A word of caution: Google ads can be very expensive. If you don’t set up the campaign properly or you’re not monitoring your budget. You can end up spending a great deal of money unaware. Need help setting up Google Ads? Schedule a free consultation with our experts today!
Market to existing customers
Your best customer is your existing customer. These are the people who already know, like and trust you. When things are tight and you need income quickly, these are the best people to market to. You can reach out, make contact and try to rekindle the relationship. A simple, friendly call or email can go a long way. You can practice relationship marketing and send them a physical piece of mail with a “Happy Birthday” or that discount you created earlier.
You can also send an email blast to your list, promoting or up-selling your other services or products. One marketing strategy you may want to explore is running a re-marketing campaign. This requires either Google ads or Facebook ads, where you target the customers who have interacted with your business before. these people may be your existing customers, may have visited your site before but not taken action, or may just be people who follow you on social media. You are able to deliver an ad specifically to this audience to try and convert them. While effective, these campaigns rely on an existing data set- an audience that you already have. Whether you have a spreadsheet of customer data or you’ve run Google ads before and have had some prior clicks to your website, you’ll need all of that customer information to be able to run a campaign like this. When it comes down to marketing to your existing customers, the possibilities are endless, but keep this in mind, whatever you are offering to your existing customer, make sure it’s of value to them because they are already loyal to your company.
Connect with referral partners
When discussing “Referral Partners,” I mean any B2B relationship that you have where business is frequently exchanged back and forth. A good way to think about finding referral partners is to look at similar industries. For example, as a digital marketing agency, we work really well with videographers. So when things are slow, I might go and start building or nurturing relationships with videography companies because we share a target audience. If I introduce myself, have a great connection with them, and make them aware of what I do, they might refer me in the future. I also might have a new partner to whom I can refer business. If you already have some referral partners, check in and see how they’re doing. If they need anything and ask them if they know of anyone who needs your service or products. You can even offer a referral kickback if you’d like. Listen to our episode: How Your Competition Can Grow Your Business.
Start networking
Sometimes going back to the basics can move the needle forward. Now, this isn’t exactly the quickest method of generating sales as networking is largely relationship based and can be a significant time investment. However, you never know where your next customer may come from. You can do the traditional boots-on-the-ground networking where you find local events near you to attend, or you can network digitally through social media platforms or email outreach. LinkedIn is a great place for B2B networking, where you can find those referral partners I mentioned before and then message and connect with them. You can find social media influencers to connect with or Facebook groups to post in. Either way, scour your existing contacts sphere and see who you can network with to build a relationship and hopefully drive some referrals your way when you are out networking. Some people may immediately recognize that they need your product or service. In contrast, others may start a relationship that you will need to nurture to generate business from that point.
Conclusion
To recap, the Five ways to generate sales when business is slow is:
- Offer a Discount
- Run a Paid Ad
- Market to Existing Customers
- Connect with Referral Partners
- Start Networking
With these tactics, hopefully, you can bridge the gap in sales when business is slow in order to keep growing and scaling your company. If you’re ready to learn how Digital Marketing can help keep your sales stream flowing, click here to schedule your free consultation with our digital marketing experts!
