William Russell Feb 17, 2014

By William Russell
February 17, 2014 


Having the right tools for a job can often mean the difference between success, frustration or even failure.  Tools are purposely designed to help us get jobs done effectively and efficiently.  Without them, we either improvise and hope for the best, or nothing gets accomplished.  

In business, we need sales and marketing tools to connect with the buying market.  Some tools are designed to address specific situations while others are purposed for other needs.  The tools that connect best with your prospective buyers are going to be those that make the most sense for your business.  Once identified, you’ll want to assemble your wares to build an effective sales and marketing toolkit.

What should be in your toolkit?

While many communication tools are available in several forms, only certain ones are going to connect well with your market.  Information about your product, service and offerings needs to be conveyed to a prospect so that they have a clear understanding of your solution.  This can be accomplished through a well-structured digital brochure, video, testimonial, printed material or in a presentation.  These options often mean leveraging the power of success stories, customer profiles, solution overviews, white papers, and more.  All of these are tools that can be developed by your marketing resources and put to good use by your sales team. 

For example, you may need a comprehensive marketing piece that fully explains your offering in one situation whereas in another you may only need introductory information that whets the appetite of a prospect.  For initial inquiry fulfillment, a solution overview may be adequate until deeper content is needed for a more serious prospect.  In either case, you may want to customize your materials depending on the situation and opportunity, as you would do for a particular vertical market or a for specific solution your company offers.        

Tools with a purpose

Your sales and marketing toolkit should be viewed as an instrument designed to accomplish an objective as effectively and intelligently as possible.  To do that, consider these points:

• Determine the purpose of each communication tool and what you want them to help you accomplish
• Focus on the intended audience and how to best connect with them
• Develop and design formats based on how your audience prefers their information to be presented
• Create a logical flow to your communication content that unfolds your story
• Use language that relates well with your audience and demonstrates your knowledge for addressing their needs and solving their challenges
• Keep your content benefit-rich and results-oriented rather than over-baked with hype
• Leverage the power of client testimonials, quotes and endorsements that offer “proof” of your marketing claims
• Provide enough information to convey a strong message, but not so much that the piece does all the selling for you
• Use visually appealing graphics, illustrations and pictures that relate well to your prospects
• Be consistent with your company’s brand strengths and reputation in all communication tools
  

Be sure your sales support tools have a clear purpose of how they are intended to be used and why they are needed.  Just because something is clever, neat, cool or the “latest thing” doesn’t necessarily mean it will be effective.  Your marketing toolkit is purposed to enhance the sales process in order to professionally convey your solution offering to buyers.  

Each of the communication tools will serve a purpose on their own, and collectively they’ll form an integrated sales and marketing toolkit for you to effectively connect with your market.  The objective is to include the right tools that your team will need to get the job done for accomplishing your business goals.