This article will walk you through the most effective sales channels you can use today and give you a brief overview of how they fit into the bigger sales picture.
sales channels
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The importance of choosing the right sales channels
An important part of sales excellence is understanding your customers saudi arabia numbers nowing who they are, what their goals are, what they want to see in a product, and where they look for product-related information – all of these things will help you build a more effective sales strategy.
This knowledge should also dictate your choice of sales channels. Choosing a sales channel that doesn’t resonate with your audience will result in wasted resources on that sales channel.
You should also consider your company's overall goals and budget. Some sales channels can produce results quickly, but may require a high budget. Others start to pay for themselves after months of work and do not require as much expenditure.
Choosing the right mix of sales channels and sales operations KPIs allows you to focus on your target audience and work towards your long-term goals instead of wasting time and money on something that won’t yield as much ROI for your company.
Online sales channels worth considering in 2024
In this list, we're not going to touch on traditional sales channels, such as in-store purchases or TV ads. These can also be a viable option, depending on the type of business you have, but this article will focus on 15 online sales channels classified into four main categories.
1. Content sales channels
Content has become one of the most versatile sales channels. While these types of sales channels are mostly useful for attracting new leads to the top of the marketing funnel, 60% of marketers use content to generate sales. Here are the four content sales channels that may be best for your business.
SEO
SEO is a crucial channel for most types of businesses because it has uses for every part of the sales funnel. Targeting commercial or transactional keywords can directly lead to sales. Targeting informational keywords can help improve brand awareness and trust, as well as drive potential customers to the top of the sales funnel and convert them down the road.
Generating sales with SEO requires analysis. One way to do this is to use a web traffic checker to estimate organic traffic and discover the keywords that bring in the most visitors. The results of these regular checks and comparing your progress to industry leaders will help you target the right demographics, set achievable goals, make profitable marketing decisions, and ensure long-term growth.
Newsletter
Good search visibility, along with other website traffic channels, ideally converts users to the first step of the sales funnel: newsletter subscription. This is the primary sales tool for most companies, as it has one of the highest ROIs among all sales channels.
The most important step to improve sales figures with a newsletter is to segment your recipient list and personalize the content based on their interests. To do this, you can use a free newsletter creator to create and send personalized newsletters that will capture the attention of your target recipients. Content that announces discounts or introduces new products for pre-order is more likely to boost sales.
Podcast
This sales channel is most popular with audiences under 34 and works well at the top of the sales funnel. Studies show that hosting a business podcast can increase trust in your company, and that’s crucial for decision-making.
There are a couple of ways to sell with a podcast. Your B2B podcasts should focus on showing how your products can help solve the problems you pose or sharing your authentic expertise.
Video
While video is generally considered a way to increase brand awareness, 87% of video marketers said that this channel directly impacted their company’s bottom line. In the same survey, 87% of consumers said that video improved their attitude toward a brand, and 82% said that a video convinced them to buy a product.
Short videos of less than 60 seconds on platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok are the most effective for B2C sales. For B2B sales, how-to and educational product videos on YouTube, LinkedIn, or Facebook are the best options. 44% of consumers say that a video is their first choice when it comes to learning about a product, so investing in this type of content can increase sales.
2. Outbound
Inbound sales funnels build a larger sales pipeline with people who are interested in your content and your business. Even though they sometimes have a low response rate, it is a great way to make sales quickly.
Outgoing ABM
Account-based marketing is a strategy that focuses on customer accounts that have the potential to generate the most profit for your company, studying their pain points and personalizing your communication.
The key to success with this sales channel is not to spend time researching your customer. Since you are focusing on a small number of accounts that are expected to provide the most value, you will need to customize your sales efforts to maximize conversion opportunities in the logistics of e-commerce.
Cold Email
The main challenge with using cold email as a sales channel is finding the right balance between research, personalization, and volume of emails sent. It's better to have higher volumes, as the success rate isn't going to be high, and researching hundreds of companies is time-consuming.
But the less personalized your emails are , the lower your success rate will be. So it's best to either streamline your research workflow to a minimum or put more effort into personalizing your marketing pitches to the leads that seem most profitable for your business.
Social selling
Social selling is not limited to cold texting potential customers, but also requires being active on a social media platform of your choice and building a relationship with potential customers.
To be successful with social selling, you need to pay more attention to leveraging your online presence and building relationships with decision-makers than to cold-calling. People who already interact with you on social media will be easier to convert when you decide to reach out in person.
3. Paid
Paid sales channels may offer a lower ROI due to the need to budget for expenses, but they are great for generating sales quickly. Paid ads are also one of the easiest channels to track, as you can calculate ROAS and know with a good degree of certainty if there are any external factors influencing it, unlike with content marketing.
These are the four most useful paid sales channels in 2024.
Google Ads
Google Ads might be one of the best paid sales channels because with search ads, you can target users who are intent on making a purchase rather than just showing ads to unsuspecting people. The average conversion rate for search ads is around 4%, and most of those conversion actions are purchases, not just subscriptions or likes. Display ads fare much worse, with conversion rates around 0.5%.
One of the most effective ways to improve your Google Ads conversion rate and boost sales is to be specific with the audience you are targeting. Not only can you choose the right keywords to target, but also the demographics to show those ads to. This not only narrows down the list of people your ads are shown to, but also increases the number of conversions.
LinkedIn Ads
While advertising B2C products on this platform offers little to no benefit, it is essential for B2B sales. This is mainly because four out of five people on the platform make decisions for their companies, making LinkedIn the perfect way to find them, study their needs, and get in touch with them.
LinkedIn offers different types of ads, from boosting posts to leaving sponsored messages in the inbox. So your goal when optimizing LinkedIn ads to improve sales is to understand all types of ads and make strategic decisions about when to use them. Be especially careful with inbox ads, as a message that seems inauthentic and impersonal will likely be ignored.
Ads on YouTube
YouTube is the leading platform for video marketing, and while it is possible to run ads with images, it's best to use the platform for what it's intended for: video ads. Video ads are typically reserved for top-of-the-funnel leads, but there is a way to make sales on YouTube, too.
Aside from capturing your viewers' attention, you'll need to focus on a specific audience that may be more likely to convert. Part of that means finding your target audience when setting up your ad, but it's best to remarket on YouTube as it has the most potential to drive sales.
Meta Ads
Meta’s two platforms, Instagram and Facebook, also offer a lot in terms of targeting and accessing an interested audience. Even though most people use these social media platforms for entertainment and not work, the conversion rate for B2B companies is 10% , which is on par with B2C.
As with most advertising and sales channels in general, the key to driving sales is finding the right audience. Segment your audiences and serve them content that is more aligned with their pain points and goals.
4. Network
These types of sales channels involve partnering with others, whether it be creators or your audience.
Sponsorships
This sales channel is used primarily by large companies. They sponsor events, trade fairs or industry associations. Small companies can sponsor smaller events, sometimes even at a local level. For example, an online music store can sponsor a small band's performance in a coffee shop.
The two most important things to keep in mind when entering into a sponsorship deal are making sure attendees are interested in your product and showcasing your products. For offline events, it's important that attendees know how to get in touch with you, so a small gift with a business card can go a long way.
Influencers
Sponsorships are hard to come by, so marketers prefer influencers over sponsorship deals. A good partnership with an influencer essentially allows you to build trust with their audience and can encourage people to try your product just for the sake of helping the creator.
Verifying that the audience of the influencer you want to work with aligns with your ideal customer profile is an important step, but it’s even more important to let the influencer do their job. Don’t give them a detailed content brief; simply give them a list of hard no’s and let them create content that resonates with their audience.
Referral Program
This is one of the most effective sales channels for B2B companies, as nothing inspires as much trust as a personal recommendation from a friend or family member.
The biggest problem you may encounter is incentivizing your current customers to recommend your product. Simply sending an email offering a dollar of credit in exchange for a referral isn't enough. You need to work on improving your customer satisfaction rating and overall product quality so that more people will recommend you.
Community
Community marketing is a fairly complex technique, but in terms of sales goals, it works much like a newsletter. Basically, you create a community of people who are interested in what your brand has to say, but with community marketing, these people can also interact with each other.
If you've created a community, you can use it in many ways to encourage sales. You can ask your community members about your product as a discussion group, make user-generated content public to attract potential customers from searches, or sell directly to them by offering exclusive discounts or new products.
Summary
Choosing the right mix of sales channels can make the difference between lasting success and wasted effort. Use this list of the best sales channels as a reference, decide which ones are best for your business and your ideal customer, and use the tips in this article to optimize them for conversions.
Remember to diligently track the performance of each channel and calculate the ROI to gauge whether your efforts are worth it.
Looking for more ways to improve your sales? Take advantage of free sales training solutions.