ACT Now to Improve Your Sales & Customer Interaction

by Cormac Kehoe, Marketing Executive

In an economic downturn, marketing is an essential function of a business in order to drive sales and improve customer interaction. To market your business, products and/or service effectively, you must manage your customers and prospects.

A natural reaction is to cut back all "unnecessary" expenditure and unfortunately, sometimes marketing falls into that category. For a business to survive, and in the longer-term thrive, it is imperative that some marketing function is either put in place if none existed before, or is ramped up to take advantage of any opportunities in your chosen market place.

To manage this marketing activity, we recommend using a CRM software solution. As a leading Sage Business Partner in Ireland, there are a range of CRM solutions from Sage that integrate with your Sage accounts package to help drive your marketing and then your sales function.

To help you get a grip on marketing during a downturn and why you should do it, Sage have published a very interesting white paper. To download and read the white paper, click here or on the thumbnail image to the right. It makes for some compelling reasons to get marketing!

If you would like some help in choosing a CRM solution that suits your business budget and needs, please do not hesitate to contact one of our CRM experts on Tel: 01-8223 200 or sales@advent.ie.

New Year, New Sales Pipeline

by Sinead Hayes - Sales & Marketing Manager


The start of a new year always brings new challenges, especially in this difficult economic climate. With it, however, also come opportunities.

In conjunction with a concise marketing plan, a sales pipeline projection for the year is always useful to map out the best, and worst, case scenarios for the year. Without knowing what potential sales are in the on the horizon, you can enter a new year in the dark.

I find a marketing plan to be absolutely critical for any salesperson, no matter how big or small their company is. Not having a marketing plan in place for the coming year is like setting out on a long journey without a map (or nowadays a SatNav!) - you will have no definite way to reach your destination of annual sales targets!

A good marketing plan should answer the following questions:

• What products/services will my company sell?
• What marketing activities will we need to carry out to meet the sales targets for the year?
• When is the best time to carry out those activities?
• To whom will we market our products/services to?

From this marketing plan should come an idea of how your sales target can be reached. Your sales pipeline can be then devised by week, by month, by quarter and/or by year to give you a clear picture of your sales prospects at any given time.

If you would like to hear more about sales pipelines and sales management, please do not hesitate to drop me a line by email or phone (01-8223 200)!