Social Sale and Marketing

The different between sale and marketing is while the former is talking about closing deal, the latter is about strengthening the image of a brand. When it comes to businesses, effective marketing but without selling will not make a company to sustain, unless the company has allocated sufficient resources for that purpose. Many companies might not have the capability of launching aggressive marketing exercise but if the sale is not forth coming in the near future. Thereby, it is important to have marketing strategy bridging the selling programmes.

For social marketing, communicating the good causes of an organisation to the target group effectively is critical. People might have many choices for contributing their resources and resources are scarce with many NGOs championing similar social causes. Competition arose and social organisations have to be creative, proactive and pragmatic in soliciting for resources. The final push for selling is important or else people might have sympathy towards the organisations but doing nothing in providing the assistance. The question is how to conduct an effective social sale?

I think social sale is effective with proper marketing, communication and double up with follow through actions. It is important to get people know and understand the organisation better, convince and share the social causes and willing to contribute or "buying" our concerns. At time, persistence, however petty and create uneasiness is important. We tend to ignore those who approach us at the first time and get irritated after second or third time. However, we might have been influenced to listen or to buy after few times. I discovered this tactic when one day having tea with friends in a food court. While we were chit chatting, a lady approached us for contribution. At first we ignored and politely asked her to go away. She obliged but came back again after some time. In order to get her out of our sight, my friend decided to ask for the contact number and promised to call when we want to donate. Reciprocally she asked for my friend's number and so not to disappointed her, my friend did. Well, this is not the end of the story.

My friend received greeting from her the next day and the next day. The message is simple greetings related to the social causes and in between the lines, asking for contribution. Finally, my friend decided to donate after receiving few messages. I believe the persistence and continue follow through action has made the deal a success. I should think she is a good social sale person.