Sales Strategies for B2B and B2C Shops

Here at shopVOX, we’ve come up with a number of strategies that B2B and B2C sign shops can implement to generate more business.

These two types of businesses operate quite differently as far as their marketing and sales. What will work for one won’t apply to the other.

So, let’s dive right into the strategies! We’ll be sure to detail how shopVOX can help with your operations along the way.

B2B Vs. B2C

The question of “What is the difference between B2B and B2C businesses?” is not actually as simple as you might think.

There are actually many sign shops out there in the industry who don’t know who their customers are.

You have to ask yourself a question here: what direction do you see your business going? Will you want to take your sign products to small businesses and enterprises, or will you go directly to consumers?

It’s all about the value you create with your products and services. Who will benefit the most from receiving that value: businesses or consumers?

Unfortunately, if you don’t know the answers to these questions, no one can answer them for you. However, you still may benefit from some guidance here: most sign shops out there are B2B businesses that sell signs to companies that need them for their brick-and-mortar stores and other locations.

There are B2C sign shops, too, but they tend to be the ones that operate more on the ecommerce side.

When you do B2C business, there are a lot of digital strategies you have to think about to reach and ultimately develop your ideal clients. Think about SEO, paid advertising, content writing, and reviewing the analytics data showing when, where, and how consumers are shopping online.

On the B2B side, you’ll be looking into even more digital marketing strategies, but digital marketing won’t be our focus here.

Overall, however, across both B2B and B2C businesses, we’re talking more about those pain points, the real issues.

So, let’s get into some of the most vital strategies for developing clients and making more sales whether you’re a B2B or B2C sign shop.

Getting Customers Who Want Estimates

When you’re operating in the B2B space, you’ll have so many channels from which to draw leads and potential customers. You’ll have your networking groups (including online groups); your ads on Google, Facebook, and Bing; your billboards, radio ads, commercials, and so on.

But what we find works the best are all those face-to-face interactions with your customers, the cold calls to warm customers.

What does that mean? Those are customers who aren't expecting to hear from you but who nonetheless have a visible need for your product.

Maybe it’s a business with an outdoor sign that’s broken, decrepit, or in bad need of repair.

So, you then provide an estimate to this potential lead, but how do you turn that estimate into a signed deal?

You need to work through your sales process, but before that, you need to have a process in place.

What do you do after sending your estimate? You send a follow-up email.

Instead of being a nuisance to the lead, however, you can use a different tactic here: send a video-based follow-up text message. Mention them by name in the video. Make it personalized.

Why? No one leaves their phone for five minutes anymore, and this aspect of modern humans can be used to increase your chances of getting sales.

Text messages have decent success rates because they’re opened and read all the time, and especially when they’ve been personalized to your lead.

Now, it’s true that these leads might still end up ghosting you. In that case, you can assume the lead is not interested.

Give the Lead Some Options

If you’re finding it difficult to get that face-to-face meeting with a lead, you can work around this by giving the lead some other options.

For instance, if you’ve presented a proposal for $10,000, you can come back with other, cheaper options that they might find more accessible. Showcase a “good,” “better, and “best” choice that they can review. Ideally, they will go with the middle option because it will be just right for them from a price standpoint.

Remember that, in this phase, or really at any point in your video messages, be mindful of what you say and how you say it. You don’t want to be abrasive or hound the lead about not getting back to you in a timely manner.

Be polite. Say that you are aware they are busy and may not have had the time to look at the estimate yet. You want the leads to lower their defenses so they can respond to what you’re saying.

Log Your Data in shopVOX

Lastly, keep all your lead and customer data in the shopVOX print shop software. This is where your sales team can log all of their information surrounding lead interactions.

When did they send the last text message? When did they reach out last? When did they send the initial estimate? It pays to remember these dates so your team can plan the follow-ups. Without a log of all this, though, it’s easy to get scattered.

Take a few steps back from these details, too, to get a look at the bigger picture. When you compare all your calls and follow-ups with leads, you might start to see patterns of where leads fell out of the cycle. From there, you can determine what you can do to change that.

Remember, if you’re a sign shop on the B2C side, your lead generation will come from your digital marketing. If you’re B2B, leads are all about your connections and networks and where the revenue can come from within those.

If you need some guidance on using the shopVOX platform to record your reachout data, don’t be afraid to contact us right here at shopVOX!