Sales innovation examples abound in the tech industry more than in any other. Yet, at a time when consumers are fully embracing the phygital mentality, it is becoming crucial for other actors to understand the power of sales technology. With the right tools at your disposal, you can leverage these trends and implement marketing strategies that benefit you and your customers. Here are some of the most innovative ideas to sell a product that you should know about.
One of the most forward-thinking concepts in Internet-era marketing is that empowering your customers is more important than convincing them. Content marketing strategies, for instance, do away with the principles of traditional advertising and opt to never base their communication on what they are trying to sell. Instead, they aim to create content that offers a lot of added value for the user. Thus, a blog article written according to these principles is more likely to educate readers on how experience-based memorization (for example) works, than to assert that VR promises a superior training approach for employees.
This sales innovation example doesn’t just apply to the tech industry. Regardless of what you are trying to sell, you can work on gaining an understanding of your audience and of the specific issues and concerns it faces. In essence, put yourself in your customers’ shoes by establishing your buyer’s persona and strive to bring them exactly what they are looking for. The trust and engagement thus created become the main reason for their choosing to support your brand by buying your product rather than the competition’s.
Following a similar logic, you could apply innovative sales techniques designed to offer a unique experience. Again, it’s all about welcoming the consumer into your own world, as opposed to “pushing yourself” into theirs. Instead of asking “What can I do to make people want to buy my product?”, you would reflect on “How can I make their shopping experience amazing?”.
Interacting with your customers in real time through livestream shopping, for instance, is a great way to improve your conversion rate because it creates an environment where they feel heard and supported. You could also reduce the occurrence of abandoned shopping carts by adding a personal video shopper functionality to your website. This allows your team to personally assist your customers by offering them individualized advice and guiding them along their buying journey.
Mobile solutions are probably one of the most well-known sales innovation examples which naturally apply to tech brands. Yet they have no reason to be their exclusive preserve. While building an app may not be at the very core of your marketing strategy, the fact that shoppers are now using their mobile devices to make purchases certainly can’t (and shouldn’t) be ignored.
The good news is that you don’t have to launch your own mobile app to be relevant and to leverage innovation in sales and marketing as there are several tools available to save you that trouble. Begin by making sure that your website is mobile responsive and that visiting it from a mobile device takes nothing away from the desktop experience.
Social media platforms are another powerful innovation in sales and marketing because they allow you to build trust and individual relationships with your customer base. Whether they are on the go or relaxing at home, the interest consumers have in social media never dwindles. If you keep your content consistent and engaging, your customers will enjoy staying in touch with you.
And, once they are ready to make a purchase, social media is no longer just a prompt to visit your website. Take advantage of built-in shopping functionalities to help users find and buy your products without even leaving the app.
Shoppable videos also count as one of the most engaging sales innovation examples. This format allows you to create a virtually unlimited number of points of sale without being bound to any platform in particular. Wherever your viewers are watching from, they can enjoy a fun, informative, or inspiring video and be prompted to shop for any product it features.
This next-generation form of CTA is a powerful solution to monetize your content in a much more direct way all while offering a more intuitive experience for consumers.
You might think that IoT is not one of those sales innovation examples that apply to anyone outside of the tech industry. And yet, it is poised to transform our lives on such a profound level that this technology is also influencing sales and marketing.
IoT devices and application take all the guesswork out of market analysis as they collect customer data in real time. This gives you a richer insight into their needs and habits, so you can fine-tune your own offering to respond to their preferences.
AR and VR are one of the most tech-centric sales innovation examples. Here again, the focus is on providing customers with as direct and as personal a shopping experience as possible. If the visual impact of your products is a major contributor to your sales growth, then these solutions can be especially relevant.
AR filters allow users to visualize how a shade of lipstick looks against their own skin, how a different paint colour would complement their kitchen, or even to receive visual information about a product they are physically looking at through the lens of their smartphone.
AR and VR are powerful tools that e-commerce owners can leverage to bring virtual product and interactive shopping experiences to their customers.
These sales innovation examples provide innovative ideas to sell a product in the midst of the phygital revolution. Far from being the preserve of tech firms, they offer solutions that align with more Internet-centric lifestyles. Thanks to an enhanced shopping experience, customers are more engaged than ever, which guarantees a competitive advantage for any business willing to embrace the change. The time to make a move towards a new age of sales has come!