This article outlines the points you’ll need to evaluate your business operations and its perceived image or “branding” from the outside. Are you currently coming off as an industry leader? Are you extending yourself to even customers whose trust is hard to gain? Are you losing sales because you are unprepared when they are ready to purchase? Throughout this article, you’ll also learn the fastest and easiest fixes to any problems related to these points.
The Outside Perceived Image
It’s easy to get comfortable with your brand from the inside, but how do you think your brand is perceived from the outside? Can you ask a friend whose opinion you trust? How many social media accounts do you have and are they all well-maintained? Do they all look like they are family to one another in under the same brand? Do the images, colors, and fonts speak to your ideal client? These questions pinpoint the answers you need to find out what your current first impression is being left on your audience.
Beyond that, you need to ask yourself if you are providing your audience a “clear call to action”. Are you telling them what you have to offer and exactly how they can get it? Do you provide them a convenient way to purchase and/or contact you? You can inject a clear, but soft call to action in your brand’s banners by including a “do this” message somewhere in it; big or small, short or long. Make sure your profiles are entirely filled out for those who want to get to know you further, and that you provide them your contact information somewhere.
These days, if your social media is not kept up, are you even in business? Just like the saying goes “if a tree falls in the forest and no one was around to hear it, did it fall?”. If your social media accounts are quiet, your leads cannot hear you calling them. Consider researching how to create your own social media strategy and schedule your time accordingly. Professionals known as ‘Social Media Managers’ are a great addition to your team. Interview a few and you’ll be surprised what you learn! You may even get a free evaluation or strategy out of your inquiry!
The Inside Structure
They say that there are only 3 places businesses run into problems; they either do not have enough leads coming their way, they have a problem converting them to buyers, or they don’t have the inventory or manpower to support the rate of conversion. We already learned to evaluate our business’ perceived image and there are a number of ways to reach potential customers. My biggest concern with clients is their inside product and pricing structure. A customer comes to your site or social media accounts trying to qualify you as a place they’d like to purchase from and if they perceive your product and services packages as disorganized, you’ll probably never learn why your conversion rate is low. Many businesses don’t even have a structure, publicly or inside, so when a customer is ready to purchase now, time is of the essence, and if you don’t have pricing and a structured offer to send them quickly, you’ll lose the sale. Nothing kills sales faster than perceived disorganization and too much time passing!
The best pricing models offer 3, 4, or more main products or services at different levels of value. Having these varied levels nurtures your relationship with customers by allowing them to do business with you inexpensively as you gain their trust. This allows you to also cast a larger net, and capture customers at the level of spending they’re comfortable with. Companies today even offer a free product or service at the bottom of their “value ladder” for customers who are unwilling to do any business with companies they do not know. Having a structure like this also makes you extremely comfortable and efficient selling the product because this piece is already in place. Knowing your product’s cost and that there are multiple levels or services you can intuitively sell your customer will immediately and greatly increase your closing rates! Do some “market research” to uncover similar businesses’ pricing models.