7 proven ways to improve your business communication to boost sales and engagement
There are three basic elements that have a direct impact on your sales: quality, prices and communication.
Businesses normally focus on having quality products to sell and setting the correct prices at which clients are willing to buy these products.
However, they normally forget about communication. And in most cases, that’s why businesses fail.
[Tweet “Without effective communication, you cannot convey the quality of your products through words.”]
And you can’t justify the prices of your products either.
That’s why we sometimes think that a product or service is too expensive; most of time we aren’t aware of the efforts behind it or the benefits that they can bring.
Don’t worry if you have never implemented a communication strategy in your business. Today I’m going to give 7 proven tips that you can start implementing right now in your business communications.
Why is business communication so important to boost sales and engagement?
Communication is what stands between your product and your clients. Without an effective communication, businesses wouldn’t even exist, because they’d not be able to sell their products.
Have you ever wondered why we sometimes don’t really mind how much we pay for certain expensive products or services (for example, a masters degree), but sometimes we complain about an “expensive” cup of coffee? That’s called perceived value.
When we study a masters degree, we know for sure that we’re going to get something in exchange: a improvement of our skills, better career opportunities, specialisation in certain field, etc.
However, when we go to a café and order a cappuccino, we tend to compare this cappuccino with the rest we’ve tried previously. (At the end of the day, a cappuccino is always the same, right?) And that’s why we may not pay attention to other details, such as the comfy sofas where you’re having your coffee from, the fast Internet that you can use to work or the quality of the coffee.
And that’s why we need to make sure that we convey all these other aspects through our communications with our audience and potential clients.
What are the benefits of improving your business communication?
Business that implement effective communication can:
- boost their sales by communicating their messages and the benefits of their products and services,
- differentiate themselves from their competition and convey their USP,
- guide their audience effectively through their selling process, answering all their clients’ questions, and
- offer a better customer service adapted to the needs of their clients.
7 proven ways to improve your business communication
1. Analyse your audience and the objectives of your communications
Every piece of communication needs to be adapted to your target audience. That’s why you need to this audience as much as you can.
At least, you should know what they want to achieve when they’re considering buying your products or services, and what’s their biggest fears and concerns before buying from you. These two points are essential and you should tackle them when you communicate with your audience.
You should also know the objective of every text that you’re publishing. The structure of an “about me” page will be different from a landing page, because both pages have very different objectives.
I keep seeing many businesses online that use their home page as a sales copy. People visiting a home page aren’t ready to buy yet. They need to get to know the business and the products or services that you’re selling first.
2. Make sure you’re conveying your business’ mission and vision (USP)
Your USP is what differentiates your business from your competition. Even though there are businesses out there that sell similar services, you should always aim at defining an USP and tailor your business to a specific segment of the public.
Airlines that sell cheap and luxury flights are a good example of this. Although they are selling the same thing (flights), they both managed to tailor their services to very different segments of the public, so they aren’t competing with each other.
Make sure that your USP is clear and that you’re conveying clearly your business’ mission and vision through your communications with your clients.
3. Write all your texts by bearing in mind your target audience
All your texts must be adapted to your audience. I keep seeing businesses that focus too much on mentioning how many years of experiences they have in certain industry, their number of employees, etc.
People don’t really mind about that. However, they do mind about the benefits that they are getting when they buy from you.
Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and start thinking what they really like to read from you and why they should stop to read your texts.
4. Focus on the benefits and reasons behind a product or service
Start turning your products features into benefits for your clients.
There’s a good exercises that I always use to do so. For each product or service feature, add and complete the next sentence next to it: “this is beneficial for my clients because…”
For example:
“I’ve got over 5 years of experience in legal translation, this is beneficial for my clients because I can solve any problems arisen from legal texts.”
This is how you stop focusing too much on your products and start writing texts that your clients will be interested in reading.
5. Pay special attention to titles and subject lines
90% of the success of your texts is due to the titles and subject lines. Very few people will read all the information in a page online. People are always busy and tend to scan through the text paying special attention to the headlines or subject lines -when it comes to emails.
Make sure that they understand what the text is about and the general ideas that you want to convey just by reading the headlines. (A good example is the table of content at the beginning of this post.)
6. Ask your clients for feedback
The best way to adapt your communications to your clients is by asking directly to them. You can use online forms (such as SurveyMonkey) to gather data about what they’re interested in, what they expect from you, what their main concerns are, etc.
This is the best way to collect quality information about what your clients and potential clients are interested in.
7. Speak the language of your clients
Although you may probably communicate with your clients in English, your audience will be more attracted to your content if you express yourself in their native language.
As Willy Brandt said:
If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. If I’m buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen! (you must speak German).
In conclusion,
- Don’t forget that communication plays a crucial role in your sales. If you just focus on quality and prices, but don’t convey these two aspects to your audience through effective communication, you won’t be able to sell your products and services.
- Communication is what businesses commonly forget about, and it makes businesses lose big sums of money (either because their communication isn’t effective or because they cannot communicate with their target audience due to a language barrier).
- You can differentiate yourself from you competition by conveying your USP through your communications with your audience.
