Innovation in sales and marketing encompasses all the improvements to your company’s sales and marketing efforts that benefit your customers, employees, shareholders or other stakeholders.

We suggest that innovation in sales and marketing is of equal importance with product innovation and service innovation.

In some markets it may be of greater importance than product innovation and service innovation to business success. Typically this will be where the products are low-tech or where there is little differentiation at an ingredient or component level.

The two main drivers of innovation in sales and marketing are:-

1.  New Technologies

   As in product innovation, service innovation and process innovation, the arrival of new relevant technologies can be a catalyst for innovation in sales and marketing.
   
   Examples of this would include sales force automation tools, campaign management software and analytics software for search engine optimisation.

2. Desire To Serve Customers Better.

   This is about companies making it easier for customers to buy a product. It may include increasing store distribution, introducing new financing schemes, improving customer service, improving website navigation, improving delivery or supply chain flexibility or responsiveness.

How To Innovate In Sales And Marketing.

Innovation in sales and marketing has many similarities with other types of innovation within a business.

There is scope to innovate in:-

• sales and marketing as it touches your customers.
  • E.g. innovation in your targeting and segmentation approach
  • E.g. innovation in brand activations, supply chain
• your internal sales and marketing processes
  • E.g. innovation in your marketing planning process
  • E.g. innovation in how you motivate your sales teams
• your cost model for sales and marketing investment.
  • E.g. innovation in promotional funding arrangements with customers
  • E.g. innovation in your lead generation process.

As such, the critical factors for innovation in sales and marketing include; data analysis, understanding what customers want, creative thinking and managing the development of the innovation through to implementation.

Those who wish to innovate in sales and marketing face similar challenges to product innovators, these include:-

• involving the appropriate people at the right time
• maintaining momentum on the innovation project, particularly in the face of uncertainty and when new information emerges
• keeping the project within budget
• communicating the initiative within the organisation and ultimately embedding it into daily operations.

Business Benefits Of Innovation In Sales and Marketing.

Innovation in sales and marketing can have powerful effects on your company’s bottom line.

It can help you to:-

• develop effective customer acquisition strategies
• drive down cost of customer retention
• increase sales force productivity
• shorten marketing planning cycles
• improve brand experience
• deliver more impactful brand activations

Why Choose Anatellô To Help You With Innovation In Sales and Marketing?

Anatellô can provide you with the type of help that improves effectiveness and efficiency of innovation in sales and marketing:-

• Effective innovation processes that will enable you to innovate smarter and faster.
• Facilitation of your innovation teams that can enable participation from a wider group of staff and gain their deeper commitment to action.
• Training in creative thinking and creative problem solving techniques to enable your teams to access all their creative potential.
• Development of high performing teams that will ensure excellence in your innovation in sales and marketing
• Help to undertake creative research or gather customer insight to ensure that your organisation’s understanding of what customers want, rivals that of your competitors.