A huge number of companies dominate the world of commerce. Still, despite this, there are numerous sales channels through which they can place and distribute their products or services on the market. These are real physical or digital places where brands make their offer available. Without them, there would be no profit, and consequently, the company’s growth would cease.
Choosing the most suitable one for your business could guarantee the achievement of excellent results and the achievement of adequate success. In this article, let’s see what sales channels are, what they are, the existing types and the solutions to increase the number of people directed to your physical or e-commerce store.
Sales Channels: What They Are And The Existing Types
In marketing, the term ” channel ” means the path a certain good is destined to complete before finally reaching the final customer. Therefore, reference is made to commercial figures or intermediaries contributing to making the product or service available on the market. The ” sales channel “, on the other hand, refers to the place through which the company’s value proposition is presented to the user and made accessible to him or purchasable.
Indeed, after a certain decision-making process, a specific subject, if interested in the brand’s offer, will tend to convert from a simple consumer into an effective customer. However, an asset is destined to make distribution journeys that can be more or less long depending on the type of business. In other words, there are two sales channels: direct and indirect. The former is defined as such as providing for the presence of only two figures who enter into a relationship with each other: the seller, who is generally also the owner of the goods and services offered, and the final purchaser.
In the second case, on the contrary, the relationship between the producer and the customer takes place through the presence of intermediaries. It means the company does not directly sell its products to consumers but entrusts this task to third parties. In this case, the sales channel can be considered long or short depending on the number of professionals mediating between the company and the target.
Online Sales Channels: What They Are And Why It Is Important To Use Them
The commerce sector makes various sales channels available to companies, among which it is necessary to distinguish offline from online. The former generally includes all the shops with their physical headquarters located strategically in the city. In contrast, the latter includes digital points of sale, i.e., all those stores or marketplaces on the web, which inevitably require the internet to sell and distribute their offer.
Getting a clear idea of which online and offline sales channels exist is essential today for devising a business strategy that will be effective and successful over time. In particular, in the last period, digital stores have been experiencing exponential growth, given the high connectivity and the diffusion of mobile devices that make products and services accessible without limits of time and space. Even if, despite this, not all companies still have their e-commerce.
Among the main online sales channels, however, we can mention: all electronic commerce platforms specialized in distributing goods not only owned but also of third parties through, in several cases, affiliate marketing programs; social media that have implemented marketplaces or specific sales functions based on digital money transactions within their network; finally, owned e-shops or e-commerce.
These are excellent tools for being able to convey and disseminate your value proposition 24 hours a day in a place that is now highly frequented by users and which also allows you to: expand your knowledge of the reference audience, acquire more consumer data, develop a personalized strategy tailored to the needs of customers; have lower store management costs and more possibilities to provide your potential or real customers with effective customer service.
Drive To Store Marketing Solutions And Tools
Sales channels, as specified up to now, whether online or offline and involving B2B or B2C companies, play a central role in deciding the success or failure of a brand in terms of profit. With their presence, there would be a trade and a place where this could occur. It should be clarified, however, that their mere existence is not enough.
To increase sales, it is necessary to take advantage of marketing solutions that encourage the potential customer to convert into an effective purchaser of the goods or services offered by the company. We are referring to a series of tools, such as DEMs and SMS, which can, if effectively used and correctly structured, adequately promote a brand’s activities and allow it to achieve high rates of return.
Direct Email Marketing made available by performance-oriented digital companies such as Ediscom, for example, allows you to bring more people to your physical or e-commerce store and obtain immediate results. Through careful personalization of emails, the use of attractive creativity, well designed on the needs of its customers and continuous monitoring of campaigns, it will be possible not only to obtain excellent redemptions at low costs but also high CTRs and above-average opening rates.
The same goes for the SMS marketing solution proposed by Ediscom. By sending captivating messages, which respect all the rules on special characters and length, and which offer promotions, discounts or coupons to be used within the physical or e-commerce store, the company will have the opportunity to reach its audience and encourage them to convert. This tool, in fact, as for the DEMs, can reach opening rates close to 100% and guarantee an excellent return on investment.
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