Close More Deals with the Right Sales Communication Strategy

As sales professionals, we all want to win more deals, make more commission and generate more profit for our company. After all, nothing feels quite as good as closing a deal.

You’ve already spent time generating a high-quality pipeline and found ways to be more productive— now what?

Now it’s time to improve your approach to communication. How you communicate your brand and messaging to others matters because it can help you land more deals.

Creating and following the right sales communication strategy is a tried, tested and powerful way to drive sales success. In this article, we take a look at what makes a great sales communication strategy, how you can create one and how to execute it within your business.

What is a Sales Communication Strategy?

A sales communication strategy is a detailed guide to helping your business communicate effectively with your clients, in order to reach your organizational objectives.

A sales communication strategy typically covers five key elements:

Your goals

Key research

Messaging

Audience

Mediums of communication

The objective of the strategy is to allow your business to identify, understand and reach the desired audience with a clear message.

What are the Key Elements of a Sales Communication Strategy?

There are a few key elements to creating a sales communication strategy, which we lay out below. If you want to build your own sales communication strategy, here’s how to get started:

1. Set Objectives

Setting objectives helps you provide a go-to point for informing strategic decisions. The objectives in your communication strategy should clearly feed into the overarching objectives for your business.

When setting your objectives it is a good idea to use the SMART system. This stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time-bound

Using this framework will ensure your objectives are realistic and achievable. For example, “we want to improve our closing rate by 10% by the end of the quarter” is an example of a SMART goal.

2. Do Your Research

A strategy is much like a map. Before you can plot your route, you need to understand the landscape. This is where the research stage comes in. Without the right research, you won’t know where you’re going.

Building a detailed picture of your competitors, the market and your current position in the market will make it much easier to plan how you will take business from where you are now to where you want to go.

At this stage, you can use well-established methods such as a SWOT and PESTLE analysis.

SWOT will allow you to get a grasp on your current position (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and PESTLE will allow you to assess wider market forces and how they may impact your strategy (political, economic, sociologic, technological, legal and environmental).

At this stage you will also want to undertake competitor analysis, to assess their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your strategy.

3. Define Audience

During your strategic planning, you will need to detail exactly who it is you are trying to reach. This is important for a number of reasons.

Firstly, having a clear idea whose attention you need to grab will make it infinitely easier to focus your resources on achieving it. It will also allow you to carefully consider which mediums of communication you are going to adopt.

Ultimately, conducting detailed research will allow you to form better messages that resonate with your audience.

4. Develop Clear & Consistent Messaging

As a sales and marketing professional, you’ll know the importance of effectively explaining your product or service. Paying attention to your research will help you to differentiate your strategy from your competition. Good sales communication strategies work because they are consistently clear in their messaging.

In order to implement consistent messaging across your whole team, consider introducing a text expansion tool such as TextExpander so your team can all be on the same page.

5. Select Mediums

So now you know what you want to achieve, who you need to reach and what you need to communicate to them. Now you need to decide on the best platforms.

Your audience research will go a long way to informing your decision making at this stage. For example, if you are trying to reach an older audience for a country club membership, you may choose mediums such as direct mail and phone calls to reach them.

On the other hand, if you are trying to reach a younger audience to promote a new mobile game, you may use advertising on platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok to generate leads or sales.

When considering mediums, also think about your own business. Do you already have an established and engaged presence in a particular place you can leverage to your advantage? If so, don’t neglect that medium in your planning.

Executing Your Strategy

Building your sales communication strategy can be a time-consuming process, but put in the effort and you’ll reap the rewards. Below are a few steps to bear in mind while planning your strategy:

1. Monitor Actions

Setting key milestones and performance indicators, such as improvements in closing rates, will allow you to quickly and easily monitor progress against your sales communication strategy.

2. Refer to the Plan

Set up regular meetings and reviews to identify any areas that are not meeting the original strategic plan. This time should be used to compare information and data from your monitoring process and assessing where there may be a shortfall.

3. Adjust Accordingly

Although your objectives are likely to remain the same, you may choose to adjust areas such as messaging and communication mediums based on your reviews.

4. Repeat

Throughout your strategy, you should be repeating this process so you can constantly compare and adjust. Ultimately this will help you reach your goal in a much more efficient manner.

Sales Success Through Sales Communication

Great communication is the cornerstone of any great relationship. Putting in the time and effort to understand the best way to define, identify and reach your target audience will pay dividends in developing the sort of customer relationships that ultimately makes selling a walk in the park.

Use this guide to help you form a high-impact sales communication strategy that can be applied and adapted to serve your business well.