If you’re under pressure from management to bring up sales immediately, try one or more of these 12 tactics. Add two or more together and you’ve got yourself a mini-campaign sure to pull in some numbers.
1. Fix Your Content
You can increase your sales by 20% or more virtually overnight by optimizing your product information. Consider your product listing at your distributor; your product description should be optimized for searches on the distributor’s site. Make sure your technical specs are up to date and you have high resolution product images from 3 or 4 angles. Check your listing on all your products with your top 10 on-line resellers.
2. Partner with your Partner
Run a special promo with one of your top resellers. If you give them a juicy enough exclusive deal, they will likely give you something back – like an eblast to their customer base, spotlight on their website, etc. Otherwise, take a look at their co-op opportunities and pay to push your promo to their customer base.
Example: Offer your best on-line reseller an exclusive promo price on your product for 30 days. Promo prices can be tracked by and passed through your distributor with ACOPs or Deal Buy programs.
3. Make a Play on 2nd
Place an ad on the appropriate category page of your number two or number three on-line reseller. Why the second or third best? Theoretically, if they aren’t already your top reseller, then you still have room to grow. If your ad has a special deal attached, all the better.
Example: Check out the power supply category page of Newegg.com.
4. Spif it Up
SPIF: “special price incentive fund. Many disti and resell sales people live on their spif dollars and sell promoted products with alacrity. If you have a commodity type product category that is easy for the sales person to switch an incoming new sale from your competitor to you, a spif at the disti level can give you a jump in sales and grow your reseller base. Caution: Spifs don’t typically do well for complex products or new categories. Think of them as a
way to get low hanging fruit but not necessarily the best way to engage reseller or disti sales to study and hard sell your product.
5. Buy Google Ad Words
6. Run Your Own Rebate
You don’t have to rely on any particular reseller to run a co-op promotion with you. If you have a database to market to, run direct mail-in rebate offer that you either manage yourself or use a clearing house to coordinate. If you are trying to build up sales with a particular reseller (i.e. to become an Amazon.com Prime vendor) you can make the rebate exclusive to that reseller.
7. Create a Bundle.
There are lots of ways to put together a bundle, the speediest is to bundle two or more of your products at a special limited time price. You can also throw in freebie with adequate perceived value or team up with a strategic partner’s companion product and run a soft bundle through your distributor or reseller. If you have more time put the products physically together and ship out as a hard bundle (resellers and wholesalers typically like hard bundles best because they are easier to manage). Either way, the bundled price should offer considerable value to the consumer.
Example: Consider cologne gift sets only available for purchase during the holidays. Who hasn’t bought one of those before? Caution: When running a bundle, always consider how the product might be returned. If you’re bundling two products, in a soft bundle, change the UPC code and set up each item at a discount price to avoid having your two parts come back as separate and more expensive wholes.
8. Run a Reseller Contest
Use a reseller contest to grow your reseller base or as an incentive to push sales over a short period of time. Volume rebates are good, but we suggest you step outside the box and come up with something really exciting. Running a fun contest with great prizes can not only bump your sales up a few notches, but can also do wonders for your long term relationships with key sales people and reseller management teams.
Example: I once gave away bomber jackets and a trip around the world to top performing resellers. We’ve also handed out solid gold bars, lotto tickets, iPods, digital cameras, shopping sprees, American Idol tickets and sent singing telegrams. Caution: Make sure you follow all the rules the resellers, and even the local government might have about contests and gifts.
9. Reseller kickback
“These days, it’s all about the margin”. We’ve heard this over and over in these tough economic times. If you offer a back-end short term rebate, try and build it as a volume incentive so your points actually earn you incremental sales. Caution: Do not make the mistake of offering too little. If you want the reseller to work hard, they’ll need a good enough incentive.
10. Sales Training at Your Favorite Reseller
Some resellers have structured programs for training while others let you bring lunch and teach on a fairly short notice. Sales folks are busy and most have hundreds if not thousands of SKU’s to sell. They claim that the vendors they remember are the ones that consistently show up. Being remembered may be all it takes to wind up as part of a big solution project. So make sure if you bring lunch, it’s something special and any giveaways are more than just throwaways.
11. Launch a Social Media Blitz
If your product at your key resellers isn’t full of stars, chances are your sales numbers aren’t either. Check out any statistical study on buyer behavior and you’ll see that Stars, Thumbs-up, Check Marks and other positive review points make and break on-line buying decisions – from consumer, SMB and corporate end-users. Solicit your customers, your family, your friends, whoever you can get to rate your products on-line. Also, spend some time talking up your products on popular blog sites. Consistency here is key – the more you put in, the faster you’ll see results.
12. Go Back to the One You Love
Your end-user customer database is pure gold. Hopefully, you’ve already spend years collecting data to market directly to your installed base. Offer a special upgrade price on new models or “Favorite Customer Promotions” on additional products targeted at the same market. If you haven’t been collecting your customer’s data, call out to your products’ people with a general message on your site and through on-line marketing. You can always ask for proof of purchase to get the special deal.
