- managing director, uberbrand
Dan Ratner is managing director of branding and communications agency, uberbrand. He has more than 15 years’ experience in marketing, communications and branding and is passionate about branding as an enabler to fulfil organisational objectives. Working closely with uberbrand’s clients Dan works to understanding the current customer perception in the context of business goals and aspirations. Dan works with well-known Australian brands across a variety of sectors including financial services, travel and education.
Branding can be a powerful weapon in your sales arsenal. Your brand is what makes you unique and different to other providers in the marketplace. It can create lasting connections between an organisation and its audiences.
Despite the fact that a strong brand is an effective selling tool, many organisations fail to leverage it fully. Adopting a brand-led sales approach can help businesses grow the brand further and increase profit at the same time.
A brand-led sales approach means incorporating the brand and what it stands for into every aspect of your business. In other words, the sales process should be actively integrated into marketing content and processes at every point of the sales pipeline.
In many businesses, the marketing and sales functions are siloed and rarely talk to each other. However, it is important to recognise that potential customers want to understand not just the services and products a business offers, but also its culture, beliefs and heritage.
Therefore, it is vital the brand and what it stands for is represented through the entire customer journey. This means that the sales team needs to communicate beyond the features and benefits of a product or service and represent the personality of the brand. This brand personality must be represented consistently by everyone in the business.
The main hurdle to creating a successful brand-led sales process is an internal lack of understanding about what the brand stands for. If your staff don’t truly understand the brand and its objectives then you can’t expect your customers to. If your staff can’t simply and succinctly describe your brand it may be time for training, or to assess whether your brand truly represents what you want.
Anyone who is part of the sales pipeline must clearly understand how the company is currently seen, how you want it to be seen and how you intend to get there.
Once all employees understand the brand, it is time to set clear objectives and goals to be shared with everyone through the business. This will help them to focus and refine their communications in all transactions with the customer.
If possible, you should integrate all communication platforms and processes to provide one platform that is on-brand and supports the sales process at every milestone. Extra support can be delivered via a library of relevant sales and marketing collateral that staff can use at any time. This will help the sales team to familiarise themselves with the brand and will also make them more likely to share the brand message correctly with prospects.
A database of information on how to talk about things like ‘about us’, ‘how we work’ and ‘points of difference’ for internal use is also a good investment.
Implementing a brand-led sales approach ensures branding and marketing activity are incorporated fully into the sales pipeline. This helps to boost sales by building lasting connections and relationships with customers from the very first interaction onwards.
Tags: brand strategy