Page 250 - Social Media Marketing

Making Rain: Taking on the Role of Rainmaker 239

Stay in tune with where your customers are shopping and what
they are doing while they're shopping. You can obtain this informa-
tion through the following sources:

• Industry journals
• General business journals
• Customer surveys
• Colleagues in your industry
• Your own online data collection and analysis

Tip: If you are selling products and services online, ask the
company that manages your online store about any analytics
tools it has available. Tools like this can gather and present very
useful data, including the number of people who visit your store,
which products and services they show interest in, how much
time they spend on a particular page, and your conversion rates.
By experimenting with the way you market products and services
and then studying the effects they have on sales, you can improve
your online marketing significantly.

Changes in Your Industry

Many things can affect your industry. Just look at the effect that
smoking bans have had on bars and nightclubs, the effects that
interest rates have on home sales and mortgages, and the effects
that lawsuits have had on pharmaceutical companies. As a sales-
person, any change that happens within your industry or that affects
your industry is likely to have an effect on your sales, so keep your
eyes and ears open for any news.

Again, industry conferences and journals, general business jour-
nals, colleagues, and various news media are great sources for find-
ing out what's going on in the world. Remember that any change