Here Are 7 Methods To Spark Fresh Interest in Your Business
Abe Dearmer
Jan 14, 2023
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15 min read
Email-Marketing
All businesses go through quiet phases — or sales slumps — from time to time. That might mean fewer pricing inquiries, no repeat business, and an inability to reach your target market. Okay, nobody seems to want your products and services! What do you do?
Whether you are a small business owner or manage a larger enterprise, it's time to brainstorm and plan for the future rather than panic. Sparking engagement from prospects and existing customers can be done in various ways. This blog post from FiveCRM will explore seven of them.
1. Outbound Phone Calling
Sometimes the best way to engage with cold leads is to simply pick up the phone. You don't necessarily need to have a call script, but always have a specific promotion or desired action to discuss with each contact you communicate with.
Say you have a startup that has experienced a drop in sales. The phone no longer rings as much as it once did, and you are worried about the future of your business. Instead of sitting around and waiting for sales to pick up, target consumers who have previously purchased your products and services. A simple phone call from one of your team members will remind these consumers about your offerings and spark new interest in your company. You can remind previous customers about your excellent customer service, attention to detail, and creative ideas.
CRM (or customer relationship management) software can prove invaluable for keeping tabs on interactions with previous customers. You can note what you discussed with contacts after every conversation and keep a record of each consumer’s individual needs. FiveCRM, for example, lets you create and update customer profiles with information such as contact details, purchasing habits, customer behaviors, and more.
Be sure to plan future interactions, too. Some people might say they don't need your products or services right now but want you to call them back in a few months. Add this information to customer profiles in your CRM and schedule follow-up calls for the future!
2. Motivate Your Team Members
A recent sales slump can be stressful for team members and even impact their well-being. Fears of job losses among teams because of a lack of business can even lead to burnout and prevent employees from bringing their best work to your organization.
To prevent this from happening, motivate your team. That might involve removing employees from their comfort zones and investing in sales training that helps them engage with customers over the phone more successfully. You can motivate employees whether you have a remote work, in-office, or hybrid model.
Your employees might be stuck in a rut and require new perspectives on dealing with customers and increasing sales. Therefore, investing in training and optimizing your work culture can result in real positive change. You can also optimize work-life balance for employees and reward hard work with social outings and other out-of-the-office experiences. Great leaders and mentors know how to inspire their teams and improve employee motivation no matter the circumstances!
A well-motivated team can not only result in a turnaround for your business but boost retention and lead to a better company culture. Employee engagement can transform your work environment, so make it a big part of your long-term strategy.
3. Attending Networking Events
If you're a B2B company, attending networking events can be a great way to find new potential clients to engage with. Always bring business cards to hand out to the people you meet, and make sure you collect cards from others. Never go to a networking event to get a sale — the softly-softly approach goes a long way here!
While networking events aren’t about hard selling, you can use these experiences to showcase your products and services to a receptive audience. Demonstrate what makes your offerings different from others on the market and highlight product features and unique selling points. With effective product demonstrations, you can increase brand awareness and generate new interest in your company.
Don’t forget to collect details from those interested in your products and services at a networking event. You can add this information to your CRM system, and use it to move prospects through your marketing workflows. For example, you can gather email addresses from event attendees and send them links to content marketing formats like blog posts via email (more about this in the next section). That will keep your products and services at the front of customers' minds.
The secret to effective and fruitful networking isn't just in the attendance — it's in the follow-up. Schedule time to drop an email or pick up the phone to contact everyone you meet at the event a few days later. Following up is crucial to galvanizing your brand in people's minds, so always make that extra effort, especially with those who show interest in what you do.
4. Email Marketing
Creating an email marketing campaign is a fantastic way to remind people of your offerings. You will, of course, need an email list of willing recipients, but if you haven't sent prospects and customers an update in a while, it might be time to do so. Remember that an email campaign needs a little more thought than a mere introductory message. You should create a visually appealing and textually compelling campaign with a killer call to action (CTA) at the end. Direct email copywriting is a potentially huge topic, but bear these points in mind:
- Always take time to craft a strong subject line to entice people to open the email. A great subject line gets readers excited about the content inside the message.
- Remember to base your email copy around the direct benefits that your product or service provides. You might want to showcase a product feature that addresses a particular pain point or explain how your service will make a real difference in the recipient's life.
- End with a strong CTA that makes it as easy as possible for the reader to take action. Link your CTA to a landing page or relevant product page.
- Send email promotions to those on your lists regularly. You don’t want to bombard prospects with messages, but it’s important to communicate with them at least once a week to maintain awareness about your brand and encourage future sales.
- Personalize your emails with the recipient’s first name in the subject header and message copy. Personalization can create a rapport with a prospect and improve email open and conversion rates.
- Include images and other graphics in your emails to boost engagement. Many of your recipients will enjoy the contrast of visuals and text in messages. You might even want to include infographics or other data visualizations that demonstrate product features and benefits.
- Use email templates to organize the content you send to audiences. You can experiment with different messaging formats based on the demographic you want to target.
- Measure email marketing campaigns with the latest metrics. You can generate insights about the effectiveness of your email strategies and share these insights with team members.
5. Lead Magnets ("Freebies")
You've probably come across the "give us your email address, and we'll give you something free" interaction before online. Everyone likes something for nothing, and using a freebie as an incentive to get people to share their details with you is a great promotional tactic. The reader gets a helpful resource, and your company gets someone’s email address for future marketing.
Creating a valuable guide or short ebook is now easier than ever through design programs like Canva. Think of a topic that complements what you sell, share your valuable insights, and get creative! You can promote your new resource through a pop-over window on your website, but advertising the offering on social media can potentially reach far more people. Paid social media promotions are worth considering here because you can target a carefully segmented audience. Remember to link to a landing page to capture email addresses before providing access to your resource!
You might also find it useful to promote your freebie to your email list if you have one. Although the people in your list are established leads who are likely to have heard of you, providing something free might pique new interest from old contacts. That can eventually result in a surge in sales for your business.
6. Hosting a Webinar
Webinars are a great way to showcase your business because they similarly provide a free incentive for new prospects. You tempt people in with access to a free online workshop, they sign up and agree to attend your webinar at a given time, and you share your valuable knowledge. The most important point, however, is to end your presentation with an enticing offer to get your viewers to buy from you.
Say you specialize in an anti-virus software product, but sales have been slow recently. You can organize an online seminar about the latest cybercrime trends, invite people in your CRM system to join your workshop, and advertise your software at the end of your presentation. This method allows you to share your insights with an audience and boost sales simultaneously.
Similar to promoting a lead magnet, you can advertise your upcoming webinar through your website. (However, advertising your presentation to the right markets on social media is likely to reach far more people!) Provided you've targeted your audience correctly, and the content you provide is useful and actionable, you should end up with a few new customers ready to start working with you.
7. Public Speaking (In Person and Online)
Public speaking is a daunting prospect for many, but it's a great way to raise your profile. If you're in a room full of people, and you're the one at the front speaking confidently about what you do, people will consider you to be a credible and knowledgeable source. Public speaking at appropriate business events is also an efficient way of networking because you are introducing your company to everyone in the room in one go.
If you really don't want to get up in front of a crowd, then don't worry. Thanks to technology, you can speak publicly online from the comfort of your home or office. Nowadays, it's relatively easy to create high-quality videos using just your smartphone or tablet, and you can upload these videos to popular sharing platforms directly from your device.
Live broadcasting is also a new and exciting option, and it's easier than ever to get started with apps like Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Live. Whether you opt for the live or pre-recorded route, communicating with your audience via your smart device can be far less scary than getting up in front of an audience in person. Don’t forget, you can invite people to your presentation by segmenting contacts in your CRM and finding targets interested in your offerings.
Here are a few tips for public speaking:
- Speak confidently about your products and services and establish your brand as the go-to resource for your particular niche.
- Invite guest speakers to join your speeches to increase credibility and authority.
- Ask viewers to join the conversation by asking questions and providing their own insights.
- Include visual prompts to make your speeches more interesting. You might want to speak over slides with key points that you want your audience to know about.
Final Word
Whichever of these seven methods you go for, you're likely to need to keep tabs on any interested parties that come your way. CRM tools provide a central database for you to not only store prospects' contact details but maintain a running timeline of interactions with each prospect.
How FiveCRM Can Help
FiveCRM is a CRM system that can help you generate interest in your business during a sales slump.
Here are some of the ways FiveCRM can support your objectives:
- Specialized marketing and performance tools monitor organizational performance and capture more relevant leads, helping you target more potential customers and boost sales.
- FiveCRM offers unlimited data storage and up to 999 databases. By improving data management, you can focus on attracting more leads for your business.
- FiveCRM manages callbacks, automates dialing sets, and optimizes workflows when communicating with prospects and existing customers over the phone. The system improves sales efficiency for outbound call operations such as cold calling, telemarketing, and telesales.
- FiveCRM's lead scoring feature helps you find the most lucrative leads interested in your products and services. That too can increase sales and breathe new life into your business.
- FiveCRM optimizes account management by producing real-time data about performance across different departments. Use these metrics to improve employee engagement and increase staff retention.
- Generate customer engagement insights and learn the reasons why people have stopped interacting with your business. FiveCRM produces real-time insights through reports and other visualizations that provide the latest customer intelligence.
Other FiveCRM features include marketing automation, previous dialing, power dialing, world-class security, call recording, and a native app builder.
FiveCRM is the CRM system that can help you inspire fresh interest in your business. Email hello@fivecrm.com for a demo, or get FiveCRM now.
FAQs
1. How can I generate fresh interest in my business? To generate fresh interest in your business, you can try implementing various strategies. These include enhancing your online presence through SEO and social media marketing, offering promotions and discounts, collaborating with influencers or other businesses, hosting events or webinars, providing exceptional customer service, and regularly updating your product or service offerings.
2. What is SEO, and how can it benefit my business? SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, refers to the practice of optimizing your website to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages. By implementing SEO techniques such as keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building, you can increase your website's organic traffic, reach a larger audience, and attract potential customers who are actively searching for products or services related to your business.
3. How can social media marketing help generate fresh interest in my business? Social media marketing is an effective way to reach and engage with your target audience. By creating compelling content, running targeted ad campaigns, and actively interacting with your followers, you can increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and generate leads. Social media platforms also provide opportunities for user-generated content and word-of-mouth referrals, further amplifying your reach.
4. What are some effective strategies for hosting events or webinars to generate interest? Hosting events or webinars can be a powerful way to generate fresh interest in your business. Start by identifying relevant topics or themes that align with your target audience's interests. Promote the event through various channels, including social media, email marketing, and your website. Provide valuable content, engage with attendees, and consider offering exclusive incentives or discounts during the event to encourage participation and create a positive impression of your brand.
5. How does exceptional customer service contribute to generating fresh interest? Exceptional customer service plays a crucial role in generating fresh interest and fostering customer loyalty. When customers have positive experiences with your business, they are more likely to recommend you to others and become repeat customers themselves. By consistently delivering outstanding service, promptly addressing customer concerns, and going the extra mile to exceed expectations, you can create a positive brand reputation and generate valuable word-of-mouth referrals.
6. How often should I update my product or service offerings? Regularly updating your product or service offerings can help maintain customer interest and attract new customers. The frequency of updates may vary depending on your industry and customer preferences. Consider monitoring market trends, conducting customer surveys or feedback sessions, and analyzing competitors to identify areas for improvement or new offerings. Strive to strike a balance between introducing fresh ideas and maintaining the core value proposition of your business.
7. How can collaborations with influencers or other businesses benefit my business? Collaborating with influencers or other businesses can provide access to new audiences and increase brand exposure. Identify influencers or businesses that align with your target market and brand values. Explore mutually beneficial partnership opportunities such as guest blogging, co-creating content, or hosting joint events. By leveraging each other's reach and credibility, you can generate fresh interest in your business and tap into new customer segments.
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