By: Mandi Andrejka and Evan Outlaw
If your edtech company doesn’t have a dedicated sales team, you might find yourself in a bit of a conundrum when you’re looking to increase your sales. Whether you’re a one-person enterprise, a startup organization, or a small team with no plans for expanding, fear not! There are steps you can take to increase sales leads without needing a fully-staffed sales team in place.
- Make the internet your sales team.
For a company without a sales team—or with limited support—knowing your target audience is job 1. The logical next step is making sure that any message you send or post, whether on your website, blog, or social media channel, engages that audience. In many ways, these messages will act as your sales team! So, it’s important that every article, post, or tweet that you’re putting into the world highlights how your product or organization solves your audience’s problems, provides answers they might not have even known they were looking for, and can improve their ROI.
- Keep your sales process easy and consistent.
When you don’t have a salesperson to guide buyers through your process, it’s essential to make the experience clear and straightforward enough that they won’t get frustrated or confused. Educators especially are low on time and budget, so if your process is complicated or time-consuming, or if the pricing information isn’t laid out clearly, buyers may give up and move on elsewhere. Think about the parts of the process a salesperson would go through if you had one on your team—such as comparing your product to your competitors’—and set up ways for each part to be self-explanatory enough that a buyer can figure it out herself, or identify someone on your team who could help with that step. You’ll also want to offer a simple way potential customers can try out your product on their own. This could be a demo or a trial offer.
- Help your current customers help you!
People involved in education, from superintendents to teachers, are powerful influencers in their industry. We all know that networking is pivotal in marketing and sales, and you should also use your customers’ professional networks to your advantage. Have anyone on your team who interacts with customers include a line in their email signature encouraging customers to refer their friends and colleagues to your company or to review your product or service online. Offer an incentive program for existing customers that gives a discount or some other benefit for referrals they send your way. Research shows that word-of-mouth buzz generates more than twice the sales that paid ads do, and people are 92% more likely to look into a purchasing decision if it came from a someone they know.
These three steps can serve as a starting-off point as your edtech company looks to increase your sales with a limited or no sales team. And speaking of customer word-of-mouth, if you’re looking to learn more about referrals and testimonials, we’ll take a closer look at the best ways to utilize them next week. Subscribe to our blog so you don’t miss the post!
Thanks for sharing!
