Maximising Sales Opportunities in Micromarkets

While many of us might not like it very much, most have accepted that sharing information about ourselves and our buying habits has become part of everyday life. There is an almost overwhelming amount of information available. 

 

For decades large organisations have been manipulating vast databases to develop targeted campaigns to win new sales opportunities. However, technology and processing power have developed quickly. Now even small and medium-sized businesses can use sophisticated techniques to analyse information about customers and their behaviour – almost in real time. 

 

The trick is to turn this huge volume of information into insights that you can use to precisely target new customers, engage with existing customers, and increase sales. 

 

As a business owner, you will know that certain types of customers and specific businesses will buy your goods and services. Micromarketing allows you to make the most of your efforts by dividing the people who might be your customers into very specific target groups, even with further sub-categories. You can then create sales messages tailored to each group, explaining how you can solve a very specific problem that they might have. 

 

Traditional sales teams use current or historical information about their territory. The information is often very general, with little detail about specific customers except their previous purchases. Inevitably this means businesses are slow to respond to changes, especially if they have an annual sales cycle. 

 

With the tools we now have available, there is a better way. Before deploying your sales effort, you can use the information you already have and additional data that you can collect, to identify the best opportunities in terms of market segments and income potential. With the same resources you can achieve better results and gain a competitive advantage. 

 

For your strategy to work effectively, your sales team will need to engage with you to create opportunity maps that will reveal micromarkets that have good potential, as well as those that are already saturated. 

 

Where your team would once have made decisions based on intuition and experience, they can now test this against hard data. 

 

Once you have chosen the people and places that offer the best opportunities you can focus on the best ways to begin the sales process, from template letters or scripted calls to special offers, promotions, or bundles of products. 

 

To make sure your team has the right tools and the best approach you can use role playing to focus their minds on how their approaches will work in the field. 

 

For example, a chemicals company knew it had 20% of the overall market. However, when the team looked more closely at its share by industry sectors in various regions it discovered that it had up to 60% in some places, but as little as 10% in others, including some of the fastest-growing segments. 

 

Armed with this insight, the company changed its sales approach. One sales representative had previously spent more than half their time hundreds of miles away from the local office based on historical sales information, although three quarters of the region’s opportunities were in fact closer to base. With a new understanding of the areas that offered opportunities for growth, their efforts were refocussed within 50 miles of the office and new accounts increased from 15% to 25% in just one year. 

 

Please get in touch if you would like to explore the potential of micromarkets for your business. 

 

Until next time ...