So, here’s a sales and marketing challenge you’ll recognise. You see a great growth opportunity. Not just see it, you can feel it - it’s yours for the taking! It could involve a new product launch, access to a new region or customer set, or a real chance for sustained growth. You need agility, speed, and early advantage to get there ahead of the competition.
But you’re really struggling to get to it. It feels out of reach. Your marketing and sales teams are already maxed out. They need to stay focussed on the core business. There’s vital market information you’ll need, and you just don’t have it. And you need to make sure the acquisition is done well and cost-effectively, so new customers stick. But there’s just so much going on internally. And don’t get started on what’s happening externally, in the wider world...
It’s a familiar story. But can this story have a happy ending?
Imagine a new approach
So, now imagine the agility of localised marketing and field sales. Working in an informed and unified way, with short chains of command. Customers are researched, won, and onboarded in a way that’s both efficient and cost-effective. It’s an end-to-end managed acquisition. All whilst supporting your brand values at the same time. It’s effective acquisition - driven by business insight and shopper data and activated precisely and efficiently for customers that stick.
Now you know that’s not as easy as it sounds. Particularly with workforce and economic challenges as they stand today. And, for competitor advantage, the key is agility and responsiveness. That’s not always easy to summon up in-house when there’s the core business, the day-to-day issues and pressing KPIs to deliver against.
And that’s precisely where effective outsourcing to acquisition experts, Cosine, can help.
First off, we start with business insight and shopper data. Precise information is key, after all. Backed up with sophisticated customer journey mapping tools, these shape our targeted marketing and field sales activation. By understanding shopper modes and behaviours, Cosine can sync content and customer communications to better deliver sales conversion and retention, cost-effectively.
The result is an outsourced, informed, and integrated approach to targeting, gaining and retaining new customers. Your customers.
Targeted customer insight
At Cosine, it all starts with the customer. With deep analysis, planning and insight, Cosine help brands target the right customers, even the right households, in a way that is highly focussed, personalised and maximises conversion rates. Precise customer profiling helps determine relevant regional levers and customer propensity to respond. This business intelligence means marketing and doorstep sales can be hyper-localised and genuinely integrated.
Cosine customer know-how is embedded in local insight based on opportunity segmentation of primary nodes and postcodes. Drilling down into the postcode segmentation gives a complete demographic profile that allows Cosine to accurately predict the type and volume of sales opportunities within targeted regions and target marketing and resource accordingly.
“In order to personalise the sales story, we need to understand your customers’ needs at a hyper localised level’’
When we apply the city model, we can forecast likely conversion rates and prioritise our marketing, communications, and resource for the best results.
This data-led approach secures quality customers who buy into your product, service, and brand. We’re all familiar with the ‘leaky bucket’ of acquired customers who churn. So it’s key to take the longer-term view of customer value. Acquiring those customers who will pay their bills, buy additional products/services, and become advocates for your brand is key to the longevity of your relationship with them and to getting maximum return.
‘’Ultimately, delivering a strong customer acquisition and retention plan is as much about the customer as the quality of the product’’
Overcoming barriers to sale
Of course, for customers to be won and retained, they must first choose you above the competition.
Cosine’s regional, grassroots experience tells us that brand confusion can be big. With increasing competition comes increasing confusion. Who’s who, what’s on offer, what’s good value and where they should put their trust are all questions which play large in the minds of customers. And, of course, if customers are switching from one provider to another, they have other questions, often sceptical ones, around cost and service comparison. Understanding these issues, both functionally and emotionally, helps us understand the decision-making process.
Three common barriers to sale are:
- poor consumer awareness
- a perception that all providers are the same
- a general reluctance to change
Understanding these barriers, as customers move along the sales timeline of Attraction, Interaction and Action helps in the timing and content of both messaging and activation to overcome them and develop a supportive customer journey.
What’s needed are cumulative touchpoints along the way. These increase awareness and encourage a reappraisal of the product benefits. The consistency and timing of these messages can be flexed to optimise the chances of success. And Cosine’s ability to offer a highly focussed, localised, and personalised approach not only increases customer understanding and conversion. It also builds trust in your brand for the longer term.
“Cumulative touchpoints along the customer journey can be targeted to break down barriers’’
|
Attract |
Interact |
Act |
|
|
Typical Questions |
I’m moving and need |
Where will I find the clearest information on packages? How do they differ? Will a new package improve my life? |
When will it be installed? When can I watch my favourite shows, |
|
Emotions / feelings |
Curiosity to find out more Annoyance with missed opportunity for better service / VFM |
Unsure / Contemplative Weighing up the pro’s and cons of which is the best provider |
Eager and optimistic Looking forward to using new service |
The customer journey
Not only does customer experience help brands create a competitive advantage. It also helps customers feel confident about making purchase decisions and builds long-term trust.
‘’Customer experience is a key marketing lever, with greater impact than events and price discounting’’
Source: marketingweek, Paragon DCX
Cosine’s end-to-end management of the process builds an understanding of where the customer is on their journey at any one time. The right information can therefore be provided in the right way and at the right time. All the evidence shows this moves customers along their purchasing journey and helps them feel they’ve made the right choice.
“Our experience highlights there is a minimum 10-15% gain by owning the full end-to-end sales process”
In fact, all customer onboarding can be managed as a seamless and integrated experience that minimises drop-off and reduces the level of complaints. All of which means happier, paying customers who are receptive to new products and services in the longer term.
‘’Research suggests that 86% of companies agree customer experience directly equates to commercial value’’
Source: marketingweek, Paragon DCX
Our happy ending
Of course, the story never ends with acquisition. It’s about customer retention, cross-selling and return on investment, along with customer satisfaction and lifetime value. But acquiring the right customers in the right way is a great start. And, with the best will in the world and the best people at your disposal, you sometimes need extra reach.
By outsourcing to Cosine, you can extend your sales and marketing reach and capability in ways which are informed, targeted and end-to-end managed. Grow your sales without increasing your overhead by accessing Cosine’s data insight and activating hyper-localised marketing and field/door-to-door campaigns that are agile and truly integrated.
Competitive advantage can be gained, quickly, to access regional and local markets with great insight and great people. Dial the service up or down, as you need it, for true flexibility. And enjoy the benefits of being able to focus on your core business and brand.