Dreaming of Better Revenue? Altering Your Sales Communication Maybe the Way Customer's mindset is the nucleus to concentrate on and nothing else matters

Every business' ultimate dream is one fundamental thing: Maximising Revenue. Every entrepreneur dreams to have skyrocketing sales for his/her offerings, be it a start-up or a well-established business. In order to maximise the revenue, enterprises naturally look at analyzing and optimizing their sales funnel.

However, many brands have undervalued one important aspect, which is extremely critical and can make or break the brand's sales funnels optimization efforts. That key factor is brand communication. It is high time brands open their eyes to the crucial influence that brand communication has on the minds of the customers. Brands need to pay proper attention to how they talk to their consumers because that is how customers will perceive the brand. To further stress upon its importance, let's highlight the fact that "Promotion" is a fundamental pillar in the 5 Ps marketing mix model but it works only when it is considered with respect to the central, and the fifth pillar - "People", referring to customers. It simply means that promotions should be customer-centric.

Buyers at the Top of the Food Chain

Generally, the communication approach is vendor-centric i.e. the communication centres around the different features of the product that the brand wants to sell. However, it has to be the other way around, i.e. the brands need to focus more on the buyers and the things they would be interested in hearing about, which basically include information on what they will gain from buying the product. In short, brands need to take a buyer-centric approach.

An illustration might help to get a better understanding. Consider this scenario — a smartphone manufacturing company wants to promote its newly launched model. In their promotions, they say, "Here's our brand new phone, which has a high-resolution camera, the latest processors and chips, 4GB RAM and 128 GB extendable storage. INR 20,000/-, Buy now!" On reading this, the customers' thought process goes something like, "Alright, but why should I buy the phone?" Maybe they are not sure how the phone will address their needs, solve their problems, add value to their lives, and make them any better. Maybe they do not understand why it is worth twenty thousand bucks of their hard-earned money. Will the customers hit that "Buy Now" button? Hardly! This leaves the enterprise wondering, "Why didn't that work in spite of offering such amazing specifications?"

Well, here is why - because the communication was from the brand's perspective, instead of being from the buyer's. Generally, companies look at promoting the aspects that they want to sell, rather than promoting the aspects that the buyers want to hear about. Instead, the entrepreneurs should place themselves in their buyers' shoes, ask themselves, "Why would I buy my own product?", and design the marketing strategy and communication accordingly. For instance, in the above example, the promotions should go something like, "Here's a brand new phone, which will get you the best selfies and photos. It lets you store more of your memories, and operates at lightning fast speeds." Entrepreneurs need to get inside the buyer's head and analyze the customers' pain points, concerns and understand what motivates them to do what they want them to do. Brands need to infuse their communication with a "wow" factor, which will entice the buyers and will earn a prime consideration for the product. For this, a thorough understanding of the customers' needs is required, which can be gained through a detailed analysis of audience insights and the past audience data.

Now, different customers will have different pain points. For instance, a student will want a budget-friendly phone while a CEO will want a suave phone. Companies should identify exactly who is their target audience and must ensure that they reach out to them correctly. A student is quite unlikely to afford a premium phone, while a CEO, probably, will not be interested in buying a low-cost model. Thus, one may say that effective selling requires effective targeting.

What Drives a Customer

In addition, in order to be effective, entrepreneurs need to understand the customers' buying journey. Their needs differ, depending upon the phase of the buying cycle they are in. The brand communication needs to provide the right information at the right stage that will guide them through the buying cycle. Picture this situation — a customer is browsing a brand's website and they are in the "awareness" phase, just browsing through the offerings. At this stage, it is useless trying to bombard them with all the product details. It will only annoy them and push them away. On the other hand, if they are in the "desire" phase, the company needs to provide them with all the information necessary to pull them down to the "Purchase" phase. This may include information like price and features.

Many believe that selling is just a randomized incident - if customers happen to like your product, they will buy it. However, it is not so random after all. The customers follow a definite process, and through the application of proper marketing strategies, entrepreneurs can optimize their sales funnels to get better revenues.