Tips for Transitioning Offline Sales to Online Sales

Selling on the Internet sounds like an ideal scenario to reduce costs and increase profits:

• Lower sales call costs.
• Customers can access product and service information, even complete transactions, 24/7/365.
• No office space required.
• Extended market reach.

But if a company has traditionally been selling offline, transitioning to online sales strategies can be a huge investment and culture shock. The following tips can help small business owners and sales managers make the transition and evaluate whether it makes sense for their organizations.

When selling offline and in person, salespeople can often make repeat sales over long periods of time from a base of brand loyal customers. These sales can happen easily and naturally because the salesperson usually develops a personal relationship with the customer. These are relational sales which can be influenced with social levers such as friendship, gifts and events.

But when the sales process moves online, those social levers may be totally gone. Online sales tend to be more transactional sales. If the vendor has what the customer wants, at an acceptable price and service level for the customer, the sale can be closed rather quickly. Unfortunately, the relationship can be closed just as quickly, essentially creating a "one and done" situation. This is very unsettling to sales professionals who are used to the offline selling environment.

Determining whether to pursue an online sales strategy is a major decision. Frankly, it may not be a good choice for every business. The following factors can help evaluate whether it is a good fit:

1. Complex or Retail Offering? Sales that are very complex—such as those in B2B (business to business) including construction, commercial real estate, custom manufacturing, etc.—cannot be completed online... at all! The level of detail and oversight needed to close a deal make online selling impossible, except for correspondence via email. For more retail offerings—janitorial and office supplies, packaged or cloud-based software, shipping services, etc.—online selling is a better fit since offerings are standardized.
2. Long Sales Cycle? Some sales have extremely long sales cycles. These cannot be completed with a quick shopping cart system!
3. High Dollar Value? Large, long sales cycle deals also often involve high dollar values. No one in their right mind would close a deal running in the thousands of dollars with a mouse click!
4. Service Restrictions and Limitations? Advertising on the Internet opens up the entire world as potential buyers. There may be regulatory and logistical factors that make sales impossible, maybe even illegal. These sales should not be pursued (sometimes not even offline!).

However, even for complex, long sales cycle, high dollar value and service restricted sales, there are online strategies that can help reduce the cost of offline selling and expand markets as discussed in the following segment.

Even if online sales are not ideal or even possible, the following tips can help a business move at least some of their operation onto the Internet:

• Website for Retail Offerings. For retail goods and services, building an ecommerce site to handle Internet sales is an absolute must-consider! Depending on the type of business and its offerings, this is an investment that could run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for research, development, software, labor, testing, training and regular updates. However, it can automate the entire process and facilitate sales that normally would have been closed offline... or would have gone to competitors.
• Website for Complex Sales. For those sales which will require significant in person, telephone and email contact, a website is merely a lead generator. Thorough explanation of products and services offered, sales territory and types of customers served and contact procedures must be included to filter out unqualified prospects.
• Assignment of Online Sales Duties. While pursuing sales online can be more efficient, it still requires that a specific person or group field and service inquiries and orders that are received. This is where businesses can easily fail in their online strategy. They have a beautiful and functioning website, but then drop the ball when it comes to service.
• Assessment of Results. When attempting to get business from the Internet, monitoring progress with programs such as Google Analytics can help assess whether it is making profits. Results from Internet marketing can be much smaller and slower than from offline sales. Caution is recommended when evaluating progress to prevent overreacting and abandoning a program too quickly. At least a full year of data should be collected to identify trends. Assessment activities should be done at regular intervals going forward: daily (only for very active online businesses), weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually.
• Marketing and Advertising. There are multiple marketing strategies that can be pursued to attract online sales. Standard Internet advertising such as banner ads and Google AdWords can bring easily measured traffic to a site. Content marketing and email marketing can help build inbound marketing inquiries. Native advertising, a hybrid of content and advertising, is a newer strategy that can work, albeit with cautions for disclosures. Ironically, offline advertising methods can even be used to encourage some customers to begin doing business with a company online.