How does marketing make selling easy?

How can marketing simplify the sales process?

A huge transition in your company's growth cycle is that point where people start calling you rather than you having to hunt down new business. Even for a marketing firm like Insivia, it took a lot of effort to get our marketing and public relations to a point where we were sought after rather than seeking.

The benefit to this transition is a simpler sales process. The goal of that process isn't just drumming up more business, though; it's driving the right people, at the right time, who have already seen the right messages.

A real-life example of this occurred early on at Insivia, where one of our marketing tactics was to place an ad in the Yellow Pages. We knew of many businesses that had done it, and we figured we would give it a try. Every call we got from the Yellow Pages was a client we didn't want. We had fly-by-night idea people who wanted to start a business with $500 calling us--and those are not our clients.

Part of marketing is understanding who your real potential clients are. This can be a difficult process for some; many businesses hate to miss out on a potential client, but if that client doesn't fit the model, they will not benefit your company.

The CEO of a large company delivered one of my favorite presentations. He described how his company knew exactly who their potential clients were, straight down to the type of underwear they wore.? That's how well they knew what was right for their company, and they felt comfortable telling people, "You are not the right client for us."

In closing, it's not just marketing that makes sales easy, but the strategy behind it.

One must:
1. Analyze the market
2. Create a quality audience profile
3. Know where your audience may be found
4. Understand what drives them

Getting potential customers to reach out to you is not enough--having those customers pre-screened to fit the pattern of people who will buy is the key to marketing. We are big proponents of quality and not quantity of leads. Quantity can distract you from closing the sales of the quality prospects.