It’s no secret that it’s a good practice to regularly take the temperature of all aspects of your business plan to analyze performance and effectiveness. However, by creating synergy between marketing, sales and customer service you ensure your business plan is more than just the sum of its parts, laying a strong foundation for future growth.

Marketing

Your business’ marketing efforts are typically a future customer’s first impression of your product or brand, so approach your marketing with the attitude that you only have one chance to nail it. Accurate portrayal of your product and business are key as accuracy and consistency lead to brand continuity.

Brand continuity is an important tool for growth since it helps to reinforce your image, your product promise and what your company and brand represent. The more often prospective customers see the same message or image, the more likely they are to retain it.

Here are a few ways to create and establish brand continuity:

• Utilize style sheets for all marketing efforts and share these with your team members to create consistency
• Use colors, fonts, graphics, media and wording consistently
• Tailor your messaging to your audience, adjusting as appropriate by channel while maintaining general consistency across search, email, website, apps, social media and print

Maintaining consistency and accuracy in marketing your product will build trust with your customer by demonstrating value. Customers not only retain information better when they see a consistent message over and over again, but it’s also a testament to the quality of yoru business and product. Great marketing leads to more sales, and delivering on your brand promise leads to happy customers.

Sales

For many businesses, often time the best sales tools are expertise in your field and a high quality product. Sure, there are ways you can increase your sales conversions by following best practices on your sales page such as highlighting benefits in a clear and concise way, using high quality images, testing price points and more. However, once you have built trust on the front end and delivered on your product promise, it is much easier to retain a customer on the back end.

Here are a few ways you can establish and build customer trust to increase sales and retention:

• Strive to be the best in your field
• Ensure your message is resonating with your customers, you brand, and your product
• Try offering multiple product options at different price points to meet the needs of different customer segments
• Excel and the follow through by delivering a world class product that you stand behind

Customer Service

Creating a product that delivers on the marketing promise should yield low refund rates, however not all products are right for all customers.

Often times, particularly for new customers, your customer service efforts must serve the purpose of educating and informing your users so they can better consume your products. Answer questions, address concerns and help them use and love their purchase. Sometimes the difference between a refund and a customer for life is outstanding customer and continued reinforcement of the trust you’ve built early on.

Business owners, however, should not be afraid to offer a refund when necessary. Doing so will reinforce the message that your brand and product can be trusted, and that you stand behind the product.  

Growth

A synergistic approach when it comes to marketing, sales and customer service will strengthen your brand and grow your business. Create a satisfying customer experience starting with the first interaction (marketing) and carry it through to sales and customer service, ensuring consistent branding and messaging throughout. In some cases this may result in free word of mouth marketing or testimonials that you can use in future marketing materials.

Solicit feedback from your customers to understand what’s working and where there is opportunity for improvement. Great businesses never stop analyzing what can be improved upon.

Marketing, sales and customers service are efforts often handled by separate teams within an organization, however, the real sustainable growth happens when these efforts come together and work synergistically to create and nurture happy customers.