9 Proven Ways to Increase Sales with Remote Selling
Remote selling is the new frontier of sales and has become a popular way for many companies to conduct business. With the rise of online shopping and more people working from home, remote sellers can be found all over the world across numerous industries.
Remote selling makes it easier to connect with customers and prospects anywhere, and it is more cost-effective than in-person sales.
There are many unique challenges that come with this type of work, as sales that used to be conducted primarily in-person transition to virtual. If you are selling remotely there are different rules of engagement that will help close more deals than you would starting off by talking business.
9 Ways to Increase Sales with Remote Selling
1. Be engaging when meeting virtually
When meeting virtually there are extra hurdles in engaging potential clients. How you speak and the tone of your voice are perhaps more important than ever. You should always listen attentively during conversations too, so both you and your potential client will know what the other person needs most from the interaction.
Try incorporating a sense of empathy, humor, and other traits that are important to your business in order to be engaging during a conversation.
You can offer live webinars that allow people to chat with you while they watch presentations about your products or services. Also, you can create a newsletter that is sent out to your customers and prospects. Remember the importance of listening when speaking on the phone, conference calling, or even text messaging. Be engaging by asking open-ended questions if they are looking for products or services.
2. The power of using video for online presentations
Video calling when meeting with customers helps to close sales. Seeing the person on the other end of the calls and emails can help solidify that you are a real person.
Turning on your video so clients can put a face to your name, even for a short while at the beginning of your call, can be a subtle but powerful way to help them start building trust with you.
However, if bandwidth is limited or restricted by any other factor it can be difficult to share video with potential clients because of how much data is used. Consider turning off the video once you’ve “welcomed” (or reintroduced) yourself at the beginning of each call to help ensure a smooth meeting.
Visuals help people connect ideas, which helps them remember the benefits of the goods or services your company offers. You can try live streaming to show your products or services in action. This can be a great way to show off what you do in an interesting new light that will make clients more likely to trust you than if it’s just words on a screen.
Even incorporating pre-recorded videos can help to increase sales and engagement. Short, pre-recorded videos can break up a sales presentation and solidify talking points. The more engaging the video, the more likely it will be shared with friends and family. It’s always worth trying out what works for your business and your clients in the online world.
3. Create a website that is attractive and easy to navigate, both for mobile and desktop views
If your website does not offer smooth navigation, then the customer will quickly be turned off and bounce back to Google or some other search engine. To help your website design stand out among others, there are a few things you should consider:
- Keep it simple.
- Don’t mistake simplicity with being boring or too simplistic.
- Use lots of white space.
- Make sure that every page on your site has an intuitive navigation system.
- Ensure that any links go where they say they’ll take you without redirecting users to unwanted pages.
User experience (UX) is important when designing websites. UX encompasses many elements of web design, such as usability, accessibility, visual layout including color schemes, and graphics used in addition to typographical details like text size.
Choose a layout
There are two types of web layouts that can help create a good user experience:
- The first is fixed-width, which is a layout where every column width on the page remains constant. This layout works well when there are many columns because it doesn’t affect how wide each column appears, and it allows for more content to be displayed.
- The second type of web layout that can help create a good user experience is fluid or responsive, which changes the size of elements based on different screen sizes.
Define your target audience
In addition to considering what will work best with your website’s design, you should also consider who your target audience or customer base may be. Sometimes these two factors go hand in hand if you have international clientele, but other times they don’t.
Either way, targeting certain demographics will allow for better advertising campaigns and overall higher sales numbers due to targeted ads being shown.
Add customer testimonials
Include customer testimonials on your website by adding a section with real stories from other customers. These can be taken directly from email messages, LinkedIn recommendations, or you could even post photos of them next to their story.
Provide an FAQ
FAQs are a great help for people who are just starting out, since often they don’t know which questions to ask. An FAQ answers many commonly asked questions right away. You can add these in a list form under one heading as well as at the top of each page so that visitors will see it more easily.
Ensure accessibility
To help improve accessibility, make sure that your images and text are visible to someone who is colorblind. Certain color combinations can be hard for a person who is colorblind to distinguish. Taking care that you avoid this lowers a barrier that may otherwise keep someone from having full access to your website.
4. Establish your target market — be specific about what you sell
Understanding your audience is critical because it sets you up to create content that they will be receptive to and interested in. This can lead to a higher conversion rate or increased engagement when people are able to relate to the things you’re saying, even if they weren’t initially looking for what you have to offer.
Once these basics are established, it’s time to establish goals which may differ from company-wide initiatives of building revenue, increasing brand awareness, getting more leads, etc.
It’s important to not only set one goal but also measure how much progress has been made, so there’s an accountability factor as well as something tangible both internally and externally—instead of just “hoping” something happens.
Aim for data-driven decision-making so your marketing campaigns can be effective.
Cater your remote sales approach to the target market and audience, and clearly describe what your company can offer via a virtual meeting. You can establish your target market by considering who is best suited for your products and services.
You can also put together marketing collateral that speaks directly about what each client will get from using your remote sales approach.
5. Provide a taster of your products/services
Knowledge is power, so offer a way for customers to gain more information about your offerings in order to provide them with peace of mind, like sample reports from past clients, an FAQ section, educational webinars, etc.
Customers will feel empowered and confident buying your products and services knowing that there are support systems available should something go wrong (as long as these aren’t just empty promises).
This is especially important today, when the global health crisis has caused so much uncertainty among consumers and industries. A recent study found that 94% of senior manufacturing decision-makers have concerns about their current supply chains. Any peace of mind goes a long way.
6. Use social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to promote your company and increase your online presence
Social media continues to gain prevalence in today’s marketing strategies, and you can capitalize on its use.
Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to promote your company by sharing high-quality educational content.
You can also occasionally use social media to share information about new products or services that you’re offering as well as connect with existing customers who might be interested in what you have going on now.
7. Develop an email newsletter to keep your customers informed on new products and upcoming events
Email marketing is very effective and should be incorporated in sales approaches. If your clients span across national borders and time zones, email marketing can reach customers in other countries just as easily as it can in yours.
Email marketing can be personalized based on the data collected or provided. Know who your customers are, find out what they want, and other relevant demographic details.
To best serve them you must know exactly who it is you’re trying to reach.
Market research can help with this, but often you will already have the answers in hand from previous products or existing clients, which allows you to focus on specific details of the audience rather than guessing at demographics.
This also makes sure that all messages stay relevant and there’s no confusion about “who” it’s being sent to, so people feel like someone knows them personally and they understand why they received an email when others didn’t.
8. Have a blog that is updated regularly so people know what's going on in your company
Content marketing can take many forms; one popular form is a blog. On your website include a blog that is updated regularly. This will keep people who are interested in your company up to date on what’s going on, and it can also be a means of driving traffic back to your website when you post about topics relevant to your business.
A common tactic for content marketing involves writing blog posts with helpful information related to the product or service being offered by the company.
As an example, if your company specializes in financial services, posting blogs centered on financial advice can increase your web traffic.
Sharing your blogs on social media can also help to get your company’s name out there. It also provides an opportunity for consumers with questions about products/services they’ve seen online to ask those questions and receive answers from other users as well as experts at your company.
In addition, it is important that companies ensure the content they publish is relevant to the searcher’s intent and not just promoting a product or service, because this can damage your readers’ trust and result in fewer conversions.
9. Use LinkedIn for lead generation and remote selling
LinkedIn is the world’s most effective social media platform for generating B2B leads.
And for any person or business offering a B2B product or service, LinkedIn is the premier lead generation tool to reach decision-makers and business professionals.
This isn’t an opinion. This is a fact.
Studies have shown that 80% of all B2B leads on social media come from LinkedIn, and 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content. Clearly, it is the place to focus your efforts if you want to connect with the right people who can open doors for your business.
Read these two articles published by Melonie Dodaro to learn more about effectively using LinkedIn for lead generation and social selling.
Wrapping up increasing sales with remote selling
If selling remotely is new to you, it can feel overwhelming at first. Take baby steps and start tackling these one by one. Having said that, there may only be three or four on this list that you are able to tackle and that’s okay too. The key is to get comfortable with remote selling because it’s not going away.
Nick Rubright is a digital marketing specialist for IRC Sales Solutions, an organization created by Spencer Smith that helps businesses learn to grow, manage, and organize their sales teams.
