Why Aio Design? We can help you increase business sales
SUMMARY How to increase business sales? Here's some practical advice for small businesses, including whether you should lead with sales or marketing, and whether we're the right graphic and web design company for you.
CONTENTS
How to increase business sales | It depends on your sales and marketing efforts
Which comes first, sales or marketing? | Your personality will decide
Small business success | You don't have to (and shouldn't) go it alone
Are we right for you? | Six benefits you'll enjoy when you work with us
To increase business sales, look to your sales and marketing efforts
How many times have you lost a prospective customer to a slick sales job, when you knew your company was the better choice? It's incredibly frustrating... but it highlights the importance of sales and marketing in small business success.
In our specialty niche, marketing to women, the good news is that authentic marketing and business practices often win over slick presentations and empty promises. Your marketing, though, still has to stack up to that of your competitors: customers can't work with you or purchase your products if they don't know who you are or what you offer. And once you've won their attention, your website and marketing materials have to be just as good or better than your competitors.
It's all too true: unless you're the only company offering highly desired services in your niche, you'll need to focus on sales and marketing. It's a hard fact for every small business we've encountered. (If you didn't go into business to turn into a salesperson, believe us, we understand!) Just know we're here to help; you don't have to go it alone.
Which comes first, sales or marketing? Your personality will decide
Your sales process can back up your marketing, or your marketing can back up your sales. Though this isn't a hard-and-fast rule, the personality of the entrepreneur, small business owner, or sales staff often determines which tack is taken.
Dan Sullivan of the Strategic Coach (which we highly recommend) talks about a principle called "front stage" and "back stage". A person who is more comfortable playing a supporting role in a small business (whether to other staff members or to clients) is better suited to the back stage. A person who is comfortable in the spotlight or being in front of clients is better suited to the front stage.
{ Marketing first }
If the person responsible for sales in your small business prefers the back stage, is more of an introvert than an extravert, or if her initial approach somehow gives the wrong impression, your website and marketing materials are likely to precede your sales process.
Customers might find you while searching for your product or service on the internet, by seeing an ad for your company and visiting the website listed at the bottom, receiving a postcard from you in the mail, or reading an article you've written. After your website and marketing materials have persuaded them that you're a good fit for them, they'll contact you, and your sales process will then take over the primary role. It's now your job to personally convince them to do business with you.
Your website and marketing, though, will continue to remind them of the reasons they contacted you in the first place.
{ Sales first }
If the person responsible for sales in your small business is well-liked extravert who enjoys talking with people, your sales process is likely to precede your website and marketing materials.
In this case, you're likely to find your customers by networking, making sales calls, speaking at conferences and events, or courting the media to get your business into the public's eye. Once you've identified your customers, you'll need to give them supporting evidence as to why your company is the best choice. After they've left your presence, your website and marketing materials will perform the final convincing necessary to convert them into a customer.
Your sales process will continue to play a role, though; for instance, you'll help by calling or emailing to follow up, and you'll ultimately be the one to close the sale.
{ Sales and marketing at the same time }
It's possible to mix both approaches regardless of your personality. For instance, if your personality is more introverted (and there is no shame in that), you can hire a lead generation service to make sales calls for you; if you're extraverted, you can broaden your reach by using marketing.
There's nothing like personal contact to close a sale. People do business with people they like! On the other hand, efficiently utilizing every minute of every day to go out and find customers (which is often not practical for small business owners and staff, who each fulfill many roles) can still only result in a limited number of contacts.
"How many people can even the best salesperson speak with in a given month? 50? 100? 200?" ask the authors of Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers and Prospects Into Leads. "A web designer's work may be viewed by millions of people every month, all of whom will make judgments about the organization based on their experience with the site."
This approach seeks the best of both worlds.
You don't have to (and shouldn't) go it alone
Even small business stars enjoy greater success with professional, caring support and expert counsel. And that's where we come in.
As your marketing partner, we use every tool in our arsenal to help convince potential customers to do business with you. Our websites and marketing materials often get our clients in the door, even of hard-to-reach prospects, winning you the opportunity to close the sale.
We design web pages and marketing materials that represent the real you, but do it so well and so strikingly, your website and marketing materials won't just stack up to those of your competitors, they'll stand out in a strikingly unique, impressive way.
Are we the right web design company for you? Six benefits our clients enjoy
We're a premium graphic and web design firm with a specialty in marketing to women and the mass affluent: those with annual household incomes of $50,000 to $200,000. We partner with successful small businesses and enthusiastic, talented start-up entrepreneurs who care deeply about their work and customers.
By working with us, our clients typically enjoy the following benefits:
MORE REVENUE | Receive more money for your services.
A firm with a customized, professional image appears more credible and trustworthy than one with poorly designed marketing pieces or text typed into a web template... and it can demand (and receive) higher fees. You’ve probably seen this concept in action with product packaging. In Priced to Sell, Herman Holtz writes, "When I was a boy working in a drugstore after school, I was struck by the difference between two brands of rubbing alcohol we sold. The name brand sold for 17 cents in a fancy bottle with a distinctive label. We sold another brand, an unfamous one, in the plainest of bottles, with the plainest of labels, for 8 cents a bottle... yet the contents were the same. Perceived value can influence price."
MORE SALES | Appeal to your specific target market.
You don't need to appeal to everyone, you need to appeal to your ideal customers. And we don't just provide attractive design; we create websites and marketing pieces that specifically attract your target market. We constantly keep up on developments not only in strategic marketing and the best website design but on what appeals to women consumers, women baby boomers, the mass affluent, and others. Our web design and business card work have literally opened the doors of hard-to-crack accounts for our clients, who were ushered in with smiles of welcome and then able to win the business.
MORE PRIDE | Feel proud to give your web address and marketing materials.
You won't turn red when asked for your web address, brochure, or business card—a common plight in those who come to us! Instead, you can nearly always feel confident of compliments, from the approving nod of a high-powered executive to exclamations of delight as a prospect examines your business card. You'll be memorable and credible, a businessperson to be noticed in the most positive of ways. And you'll sleep well at night, because rather than promising something you're not, your website and marketing materials will truly represent you.
MORE SUCCESS | Look forward to a bright future.
Your image can powerfully impact your success. Stanford's Lewis Terman, believing nothing was more important to success than one’s IQ, conducted a study of 1,470 gifted people from childhood to adulthood... and found that image management was crucial. “Terman believed his subjects would be the future U.S. elite. He was wrong," Malcolm Gladwell writes in his bestseller Outliers. The gifted upper-class children tended to become successful, but: "Almost none of the genius children from the lowest class ended up making a name for themselves. ...You're seeing the difference between those schooled by their families to present their best face to the world, and those denied that." We help your small business present its best face to the world.
A VERY NICE EXPERIENCE | Enjoy the process along the way.
We seek to delight you with our work... and we're always looking for ways to support you personally as well. (It doesn’t matter whether you’re a big fish yet.) We've nominated our clients for awards, put them in touch with valuable business contacts, sent helpful information, discussed strategies over drinks, and shared their triumphs across restaurant tables. In 2007, the Better Business Bureau fielded 2,493 complaints against U.S. web design firms; more than 35% of these were not resolved. The web design industry has one of the worst records in its database. Our BBB record is spotless.
A SPEED GUARANTEE | We back it up with hard dollars.
We’re accustomed to thoroughly delighting our clients, and we back that up with real money. One of our most popular attributes? We do very high quality, custom web site design work very quickly. We’re the only firm we know of who will design a completely custom static website from scratch—including high quality writing—in four weeks or less. And we don't just say it, we guarantee it with hard dollars: for every day we’re late, we pay you. In business, time can equal money. We’ll make sure you’re up and running fast.
Let's get started!
If you're in need of our custom website design service, with or without our search engine optimization service, or want to market to affluent women offline (we offer graphic design and marketing services in addition to web page design), give us a shout and let's talk!
What would you like to know?
- If you’d like to find out more about us or our pricing, start with our about Aio Design page
- If you’re looking for information to help you, see our helpful articles page or order our free report
- If you're looking for practical ways to improve your existing website, order our website analysis
- If affluent women are your target market, visit our marketing to women page
- If you’re a woman entrepreneur, visit our page for women business owners
