If you own a digital business or wish to become an entrepreneur, you need to learn how to apply the best sales techniques to win over customers and be financially viable.

A common question among those starting an online business is how to approach potential buyers and convince them to buy your products or services.

After all, on the digital market there’s no “face-to-face” contact between consumers and sellers. As a result, traditional approaches aren’t as effective online.

But creating a website or an online store and expecting sales to fall out of the sky as if by magic won’t cut it. And this is where specific online sales techniques can help you win over and convert more customers.

We’ve listed the top 10 sales techniques used by digital marketing gurus for you to put into practice today! 

Structuring a good sales process in your business 

Efficiency requires sales techniques that can be shaped according to the demands of consumers.

Focus on the consumer 

Approaching a potential customer in an automated manner and without understanding their real needs is a very bad start. 

Show them the benefits of your product and how it meets their needs. 

This will be a great way to show them how your brand stands out from the competition, not to mention bring you closer to your potential customer. 

Find the right leads

Good lead qualification will have a direct impact on sales. You’ll need a good lead base so you can find the best leads for certain strategies. 

After all, you always have to consider that not every lead is ready for your sales strategy. 

So, equip yourself with as much information as possible so that you can approach customers in the right way and offer the best solutions. 

Learn how to handle customer objections

Certain information is crucial to close a deal: the customer’s needs, the problems they want to solve, their questions, etc. 

Something many people usually forget to ask themselves is, what could cause the sale to fall through?

Good sales techniques must take into consideration the possible obstacles that will prevent the deal from being closed. 

You need to be prepared to handle customer objections. Make sure you know everything about your potential customer so that you can point out the benefits that your solution will bring them, even if they have objections. 

Present your value proposition

In a negotiation, the value proposition you offer your customers needs to be decisive. But how?

You need to confidently approach customers and clarify the selling points of your product, as well as the benefits it will bring them. 

Most of the time, you’ll need to compare your product with a competitor’s product. The difference between your product and what another company offers might be decisive when closing a deal.

10 sales techniques to apply in your business

1. Know thy costumer

This might seem obvious, but it’s worth remembering: The main focus of any sales process, whether physical or online, should be on the consumer.

But people are different. They have unique characteristics, wishes, needs and problems, even when they fit into your brand’s target audience.

Due to this diversity, sales approaches need to be adapted to each prospect. If you speak customers’ language, they will feel more willing to close the deal, since they’ll be sure that your company understands their needs.

One technique that can help you get to know your consumer better is to define a buyer persona. It works as you ideal customers’ profile, with their consumption habits, their pain and fears.

A persona really helps when it comes to targeting your sales pitch and negotiation techniques, achieving results that are more accurate.

2. Offer solutions for your customers’ pain

One of the greatest benefits of knowing more about your customers is being able to understand their pain and needs. With this, your brand can offer better solutions, created specifically to solve these problems.

And this is one of the best sales techniques for the digital market! After all, people prefer products and services that offer a real and truly useful solution for their needs.

In order to demonstrate that your business has precisely what consumers are looking for and need, one tip is to offer quality content to educate and nurture your leads.

Blog posts, posts on social media, ebooks and email campaigns are great inbound marketing strategies and can help you demonstrate that what you offer is truly valuable for customers.

3. Qualify your business’ leads

Another benefit of knowing your consumer well is knowing exactly when to start a commercial approach. This happens because not all leads are ready to close a deal with your brand.

Often, they are still at an early stage of their customers’ journey, without knowing yet that they have a pain that needs to be solved. Or perhaps, they are still searching for ways to solve this problem and learning more about the subject.

Knowing which leads are more likely to buy helps the company and sales team not to waste time, in addition to aligning the sales pitch and approach with the customer’s interests and needs. Thus, they increase the chances of the purchased being closed.

In this sense, lead qualification strategies are critical to know in which stage of the sales funnel they are. And as a result, you’ll be able to identify the moment in which a potential customer is prepared for the sales pitch.

4. Use mental triggers as much as you want

Mental triggers are one of the most used sales techniques both online and offline.

This technique consists of encouraging consumers purchasing decisions with a few simple tricks that emphasize the value of the product or service being offered.

Mental triggers take advantage of the fact that the human brain makes decisions automatically through signals memorized in our subconscious.

These tricks include limiting the period in which a promotion is available, using real customer testimonials and even asking market authorities for help to enhance a product’s qualities.

One example is retail stores that promote products with limited inventory, leading consumers to make purchases, since this will be their last chance.

You can introduce into your strategies several mental triggers. The most common are scarcity, authority, reasoning, novelty and social proof.

But be careful. Mental triggers aren’t an excuse to manipulate and lie. On the contrary, they serve to highlight the qualities that your product already presents.

5. Create success cases

One of the most used sales techniques nowadays, and that also helps win over customers and build loyalty are success cases.

They consist of testimonials from people who have purchased and used a product or service and how it helped them solve their problems.

This technique works as a social proof, demonstrating to your audience the true value that your brand offers on the market. Knowing that someone with a similar problem had a positive experience creates trust.

Plus, success cases also serve as a selling point, helping to convince potential customers, who might be hesitating, if closing the deal is worth it or not.

Success cases can be presented in various formats, such as text or even videos. The important thing is to use only opinions from real customers and invest in storytelling in order to convey the information in the best way possible. 

6. Don’t forget about after-sales

Don’t think that the sales process ends after your customer purchases your product or service. On the contrary, it’s just getting started!

A common mistake among entrepreneurs and small businesses is forgetting about customers after they’ve made a purchase and leaving out after-sales.

After-sales is a key step for building customer loyalty, which helps a lot in winning over new customers.

Attitudes such as asking for buyer feedback, giving discounts on new products, contacting customers on special dates and investing in a support service are also considered great sales techniques.

This is because valuing and paying attention to your consumer is critical to make them come back and do business with your brand. And that’s not all. A delighted customer might even help you promote your company, which will gain more visibility and authority.

7. Learn how to counter sales objections correctly

The life of an entrepreneur isn’t always a bed of roses. It’s common that during negotiations with a customer certain obstacles arise, which prevent the business from being closed. These are sales objections.

Among the biggest obstacles for a sale is the lack of time, indecision, unavailability or high prices.

Knowing how to get around these situations and prevent consumers from giving up on the purchase is one of the most important sales techniques.

There are many ways of turning objections into sales. But all of them include knowing your customers well, the pain they face and of course, the qualities and features of your brand’s products.

This is the time to try to show your consumer the value of your solutions and encourage the lead’s need to purchase that product or service. By doing so, you turn objections into sales much more easily.

8. Create offers according to your customers’ profile

It takes more than just a customized strategy to make someone buy from you. 

In this sense, sales techniques can take into account discounts and special prices tailored to a customer’s profile. This is quite common, mainly because many consumers don’t understand what a product or service is worth.

You can offer a discount, and then highlight an advantage that can sometimes be a great benefit for the customer. This way, they’ll realize that your company understands them and is willing to win them over.

To do so, it’s important to have a CRM. This is an automated system that manages your business’ relationships with your customers.

It helps you gather this customized information from consumers, allowing a closer sales approach and making it possible to make these offers according to their individual profiles.

9. Focus on your products’ benefits

Think like a buyer, not a seller. 

What would make you purchase your product? The benefits, of course. So be didactic and to the point. Show what you offer, how it works, and how it’s used in practice. 

Always try to be faithful to your consumer’s profile, but in this case, emphasize the advantages that the product or service will bring to their life.

Having a ready-made sales pitch might seem like an easy way to approach leads, but when you personalize your approach by showing them how interesting your solution is according to their profile, they will certainly feel more attracted and willing to buy from you.

10. Set a competitive price

You can be as personal as you want, but price will always carry a decisive weight when it comes to closing a sale.

This doesn’t mean having a cheap product just to please your customers, but rather, having a product that stands out on the market with a price that’s consistent with your competition. This can only be done with a good analysis of your competitors.

Keep in mind that you need to really know the persona you’re dealing with, while also keeping in mind the entire market. This will ensure your business is well positioned and can stand out.

Keep an eye on the numbers!

As we’ve seen earlier, sales techniques are great tools and putting them into practice, in addition to increasing the number of deals closed also creates authority and recognition for your brand.

The important thing is, never forget that the focus of the entire process isn’t on the product itself, but on the customers. Understanding their problems and how your company can help is the key to success.

After putting the sales techniques we’ve gathered in this article into practice, it’s important to monitor your strategy results closely. So, make sure you read our content about the 7 key sales metrics you need to analyze.

This post was originally written in September 2019 and has since been updated to contain more complete and accurate information.