Sell to Your Target Market

Selling to Specialty Stores

As the clouds dissipate, specialty stores are slowly emerging from the Great Recession and are starting to reinvest. If you're tired of sitting on the sidelines, maybe it's time to start selling to specialty stores.

In the current business climate, specialty stores are looking for quality and affordability.

Companies that market to specialty stores have to be prepared to communicate their product strengths to customers who are extremely knowledgeable about the marketplace. Here are some of the other things you'll need to gain visibility with specialty stores.

Putting It All Together

Ultimately, there is no single strategy that can guarantee conversions in your efforts to sell to specialty stores. It's often a combination of techniques that seals the deal.

Although it's easy to get caught up in the micro-level details of the selling cycle, sellers in this industry need to maintain a macro perspective that integrates sales techniques with a more comprehensive sales and marketing strategy.

Marketing Mix

Since sales and marketing are connected business activities, your company's marketing mix plays a central role in bottom line sales revenue. The industry's leading sellers employ multichannel marketing strategies and emphasize techniques to reach key decision makers.

Despite the fact that there are multiple way to market to specialty stores, B2B sellers often achieve higher returns by outsourcing lead generation to a third-party provider. Experian and other vendors maintain accurate and up-to-date lists of specialty stores. For many businesses, these lists lay the foundation for the rest of the sales cycle.

Sales Strategy Tips

Effective specialty store sales strategies are concerned about both sales techniques and ROI. Some sales techniques are simply more efficient than others and the ones that maximize ROI need to be pushed to the top of the list.

Also, it's important to avoid a silo approach to specialty store sales. Companies that strictly segment their sales units fall behind in the marketplace, especially when they are pitted against companies that encourage collaborative processes between sales, marketing and other units.

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