If You Are Not Selling…You Are Dead (part 8)

How important is professional online/offline selling today?  Well here are some statistics to think about:

1. Customer Focus-Customer acquisition is the primary goal of marketing.  Recent surveys from Industrial Marketing show that 43% of survey respondents indicate that customer acquisition is their primary goal. Customer retention has grown every year for the past several years with 15% saying it is their primary goal in 2015.  Finally, 54% say that customer acquisition is used to measure marketing success.  Therefor, professional selling is needed at all levels in the organization to achieve this.
2. Brand Awareness-Over the next years, Industrial marketing and sales professionals are going to invest in Brand Awareness.  They realize that having a recognizable brand in the marketplace helps shorten the sales cycle. Webinars/blogs/membership sites and other content marketing can help personalize and strengthen your brand.  Developing a “smashable brand” strategy is also very important in improving brand awareness.
3. Creating and Distributing Content-Content creation and digital ways of delivering content is the key to success in both Industrial and business to business marketing. No longer is a company brochure the main ingredient for the professional sales person.  Content Blogs, podcasts, membership sites, webinars and live streaming are becoming the top mechanisms for customer acquisition.  (Marketing Maven)

Finally, generating qualified leads is one of the top priorities for industrial marketers and professional sales.  Qualified leads together with professional selling is the key to customer/client/patient acquistion. The overall challenge is to understand and utilize all of the Online and Offline marketing and selling platforms available today.