Traditional Business Development always missed upon “Consultative Approach” which allows them to understand client’s need and requirements in better way. Let us have simple example to understand consultative approach in detail.
Imagine two persons :
A: Vegetable Vendor and
B: Doctor.
Vegetable Vendor will shout loudly and market what he has to sell. He will ask you to buy different products [Vegetables] he has and keeps telling about them like its fresh, its not costly, He will get you discount etc. and you also expect him to give discount if you are buying multiple products from him.
Now, Lets take an example:
If you have fever, cough and cold and visit doctor. Doctor will never say that I am MBBS, MD etc. He will not even tell you what fresh cases he / she recently cured. Doctor will ask you what problem do you have, how are you feeling about your sickness to identify your need and requirement to prescribe medication. Also you do not even think about negotiating with doctor even when every time go to him for your illness treatment. However, You pay him as much fee as he demands.
Now the same way we market our product, services in to IT. we ask client take this solution, now after it goes for SEO etc. however if we try to understand client’s industry, their background and value of his site and design something which cure their site for more business via Branding, UI improvement, UX enhancement etc. then client will be more than happy to pay you.
So, instead of selling , try to consult your client to get stronger business relationship with your clients.
List of Frequently used Business Development Channels / Models:
There are many international bidding platforms are available in market. Some of the most popular for USA base businesses are Freelancer.com and ELance .com. Here client can place their requirements for free and company can bid on those projects with their expertise, budget and timeline. Company can also maintain their profile and rank there.
Cold calling is very old and traditional method for business Development where one resource calls different business and home numbers and ask for website development and IT services. It required good communication, understanding of voice and accent for international language and product knowledge.
Data mining is very important and useful activity for any business. Resource will go to different information sites, directory and find data of their targeted client base and service user. This has many ways from Google maps, listing, forum, social media, Groups etc.
Email blast is one of the regular activities performed by IT business development resource. Many software like Mail merge from outlook and mail chimp from third party tools are used to send offer, news letter or product introduction / information mail with opt in form to collect consumer interest on IT product / service.
Social Media is one of the most popular tool now a days for lead generation. Articles, community and Pages are liked / shared and joined by many people. There are many professional networking sites like Linkedin etc are very useful for such activities along with many other social networking platforms.
Chat marketing is one more tool for marketing, where resource find company or manager by name on skype / other chat services and send them regular greeting message / product information. They keep adding database with right party contact and wait for them to respond with question / suggestion. Tweet Marketing is also part of Chat Marketing.
SEO [Search Engine Optimization] and ORM [Online Reputation Management] are very useful and very comprehensive process to make our website presence to top with right search and keyword base algorithm by Google / being etc different and popular search engines.
Affiliate Marketing is one of the referral techniques for bringing the end client / user on the lead board. PPC is paid marketing where you pay to the Google or other vendor for making user / visitor click on your portal. These paid marketing tools need strategic approach to ensure success or result oriented investment on to PPC or Paid marketing.
Domestic and International tread shows are organized by many government and technology group to provide platform to their skill base and technology base market. Each segment has their own kind of Tread and IT shows across the globe to participate. These will help IT Company to market their products and service to right place.
Empanelment is the process where companies get registered and be qualifying for participating on different government or non government projects across the specific domain or geographic area. These registration could help company for participating in to tenders by technical and financial bids.
This is very important method for business development resource as here he or she will call old clients, or prospects to ask for reference or new business. Here right customer approach is very helpful and your communication with them for being in touch is very important too.