Making The Sale: 3 Ways To Understand And Evaluate Your Audience

Sales is a hard field to work in, whether you’re selling jewelry, real estate, furniture, or something else entirely. As difficult as the industry is, however, there are a number of basic rules that can benefit anyone who hopes to close a deal.

Whatever your product or client base, these three sales principles will go a long way towards improving your numbers and making you a team leader.

Start With Segmentation

For any given product, there are multiple likely audiences, but they can’t all be approached in the same way, which is why audience segmentation is critical and calls on several different factors. Specifically, a good audience segment must have the following characteristics:

• Accessible: If you’re trying to market to people you can’t actually reach, you’re wasting your time, money, and energy. When expanding to connect with a new audience, then, you need to first evaluate how you’ll reach them. If you’re not sure what kind of message or platform will make this possible, then now may not be the time to approach such an expansion.
• Measurable: As we see with other aspects of sales and marketing, audience engagement by segment needs to be measurable if it’s going to be worth your time. That means you need to draw clear behavioral or demographic boundaries around each group and use a tracking system that will allow you to evaluate their purchasing behavior.

Rethink Your Sales Proposition

Another key part of closing a sale is the proposition – what does the buyer gain through their purchase and, specifically, by purchasing from you? Every product or industry has some version of this, whether it’s a cafe that claims to make the best coffee at the lowest price or the clothing brand that implies wearing its clothes will make you cool. Some industries, however, have to think much more deeply about how they pitch their goods.

For example, when developing a real estate value proposition, it’s important to recognize that you’re talking to people who are looking to make one of the biggest investments of their lives. Additionally, buyers are aware that, yes, agents do benefit from every sale they make.

When pitching a property, it’s important to highlight both the property’s benefits to the buyer and why it’s a good fit for their needs, and why they should work with you and your agency specifically. This is your value proposition.

Make It Stand Out

Creativity can be an extension of value proposition, but it is also integral to other parts of the sales process. Creative professionals are skilled at setting themselves apart from the competition and understand that a unique product or sales strategy can go a long way in a crowded marketplace.

Creative thinking can even be used during the audience segmentation process, allowing you to identify underserved but still measurable groups. Such members of your audience may be eager to buy, but they haven’t made a move because they aren’t meaningfully marketed to. Why not be the one who makes that offer?

While there are countless other elements in play for those involved in professional sales, understanding who your audience is and what they need – and doing this with a twist your competition may not see coming – can certainly set you up for success.

So, whether you’re new to the field or working to reach a higher level, when you know your audience and know your brand, you’ll find you’re equipped with everything you need to close sales at record rates.