Marketing Tactics a Salesperson Would Be Wise to Learn 1 - Know your Target Market.

While many sales people will be given a sales target, market and account list to sell to - not all do. And even if you do, a key sales skill is being able to prioritize, and spend time on the best opportunities. Or if you have a small account list you may have scope to go outside that list and find your own prospects. Either way a starting point for marketing people is to know your target market - and that is something sales people should know too.

Here are some of the things marketing people do, lets take a look at how they apply to sales people:

1. Analyze your offerings. Ask yourself what problems your products and services solve, and, in turn, to whom they appeal.

Sounds obvious right? Or are we told, or do we assume who the right customers are? It really pays to think about this. Marketers do this quite often as they have to re-think marketing copy and come up with original thought which means for them to be creative they have to move off current messaging and go back and think about the product and the potential customer. Salespeople should do this also.

So in may case I work with a publisher that publishes business content for senior management - and has products / services that enable advertisers to reach and engage with those senior management customers. So what problems do they solve? Well I need to think very clearly on this..one problem my prospects have is reaching very senior executives and my publisher client can help with this - solving that problem is likely to appeal to marketing professionals. But what marketing professionals? What seniority, what industry, what size of company, what kind of products, what location, what interests would that professional have, past experiences, connections etc. Just going through this process at the least should help clarify you are targeting the right prospects already but hopefully reveal other potential prompt you can experiment with reaching out to.

*Sometimes I am guilty of overthinking this in the sense that I can be hyper critical and think actually maybe we don't solves customer problems entirely satisfactorily. However am I being to hard on my products? Sometime you have too look at the competition and think, we may not be perfect but do we do a better job than them - are we a better choice for our customers than the competition.

2. Conduct market research

Marketers would look at first at their competitors, their website where they may list their clients, client testimonials or client case studies. This would be an ideal place to start. The second part, slightly more challenging because it has to be done over time, is to look at your competitors marketing. Which publications/sites they advertise on or are featured in and see what their advertising message is - who are they targeting with that messaging. Marketers often work strategic partners, businesses that target the same customers but sell different non competing products. Again you can look at their website for client information but also reach out directly and establish a relationship with the partners and share information. This will take time, time to build trust, and it makes sense if there is an existing relationship with your marketing team use that. If not forge your own relationship and be prepared to offer them assistance first. Events and industry associations would be the next area to target. Again marketing may have connections/relationships here, but lists of attendees, speakers, sponsors all provide direct prospects or clues as to the customers you should be targeting.

3. Existing customers.

Surveying existing customers sounds a little formal, but who better to follow up with customers than their main or initial contact point for a follow up but also to get some mutually beneficial information from them. For feedback to your company to enable better service or problem solving for your customer but also to help you find or sell to other customers. This could be approached formally through setting up a short meeting to go through some questions or more casually/informally during regular contact.

Something I have always wanted to do but not actually done it myself is set up a regular group client meeting - each client from different industries to exchange ideas - in that way there is some instant benefit to your client through the exchange of ideas with peers and possible new connections made. It is not easy to do because clients are so busy and getting them all available at the same is challenging. Maybe best to piggy back and event they are already going to or start with clients that know each other or are in the same location and make it a lunch meeting. I have seen it done well - and it certainly helps if your company or one of the attendees is a well established brand that others will want to associate with or you invite a real thought leader to participate.

If you are not a thought leader yourself, and I admit I am not, and you can not attract a genuine thought leader how can you get similar results?

You could make it more social and add in some interesting discussion points and have clear questions you want to ask - the interesting content may be enough to attract interest. A luncheon may be the best option no time out - "everyone has to have lunch." (A quote I remember from Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn he used to conduct many meetings at lunch). You could do it virtually, surprisingly more difficult I think due to the sheer number of virtual meetings we all have. However a real "what's in it for me" formula could make it work and even make it semi social by having it at the end of the day with virtual drinks - it could work. An interesting topic where they could learn, connection to others, some publicity (podcast format). I am not going to lie this is a challenge given everyone's schedule these days - getting three customers on the same call is difficult - we all know getting one is challenging - but I think there are some real rewards from this kind of interaction.

4. Segment your customers and prospects

Marketers recognise that they can not communicate with customers all in the same way or using the same channels so they segment their customers/prospects and approach each segment differently. We should also develop this approach whether you segment by industry, region, product, solution or budget. Segmentation offers certain benefits to both marketing and sales. By working on a particular segment, industry for example, sales people get to learn more about their customers at a deeper level by understanding more about what's going on in their industry. Once customers share their thoughts and challenges in their particular industry you have valuable information to share or ask more questions about with other customers/prospects. Its very likely that customers share the same or similar challenges, so by understanding more and developing a solution for one customer you can apply that solution to others. The more understanding of the industry you have will enable you to ask better questions and uncover other, possibly unspoken challenges, which may lead to more opportunities for you to develop solutions.

As your conversations and learning increase you will be able to refine, or change totally the messaging or script you had been using to engage prospects - better able to get their attention and interest from them in engaging with you. From the customer side your increased knowledge and expertise shows that you care and understand them and your perception of value changes to them. You may become a source of knowledge for them both from what you know and understand - insight /ideas you are able to share but possibly more importantly share the knowledge form others, their peers in their industry. Once you segment and have knowledge of different industries you become a valuable resource to customers in other industries too as you are able to share how things are done differently across industries

5. Affinity / Look alike targeting

One of the benefits of knowing more about your target market is the ability to use that knowledge to look outside those markets. Marketers will look at targeting a similar audience, such as an affinity audience. If a prospect is interested in a certain topic or service they are also often interested in another. They may not have shown an interest in your product directly but they have shown interest in something similar or a related product suggesting that there may later be interest in your products. You may need your marketing team's help to come up with prospect lists or you may just be able to do this manually and experiment with it to find new prospects. Look alike's will require you to have an ideal customer profile in mind, an ICP, again you can ask marketing or if you have access to an AI platform run something yourself. The easiest way to do this of course is to take advantage of existing platforms such as LinkedIn. If my best customers are enterprise sized business with offices in Singapore/Hong Kong and I get the best results from targeting Marketing Director's director that is what I will put in LinkedIn. The more you know or think about your ideal customer the better, or maybe ideal is too rigid, the people you tend to have the best results with. The ones you like to deal with. Once you have a list look for something a little more personal in their interests that you have in common (Not just the usual college/school attended) and connect on that - contribute ideas or thoughts on tat thing you have in common.

So, lots of things to learn from Marketing folk - but know your target market should be top of the list:

• Analyze your offerings

• Do market research

• Talk to existing customers

• Segment your customers

• Look for similar customers