‍How to make direct selling work for your business

‍Selling direct to customers (DTC) can be a very appealing prospect to companies, particularly SMEs.

It gives you greater ownership of the way your products are talked about to customers, ensuring it’s done with passion and their features are adequately explained.  It allows you to collect more customer feedback on products and problems. And, with no retail or wholesale middlemen, it can boost gross margins by up to half.

But if it was so easy, everyone would do it. There can be far greater marketing costs, enormous fulfilment bills, and you need to employ and manage larger sales teams.

Lachlan Faulkner is a business leader who has made DTC work. He co-founded homelift manufacturer Stiltz, just over 15 years ago. Despite selling high-ticket products which are considered potentially life-changing for people, it makes around half of its revenue from direct selling. It is now a $100 million company operating in more than 50 countries. From the importance of building customer community to being data driven, Lachlan has learnt and developed many ways in which DTC can fly for most companies.

Product demonstrations are vital 

Whether you’re a tiny drinks company sampling your lemonade at village fairs or a major fitness firm demonstrating exercise machines at exhibitions, showing people how your product can benefit them is key to DTC sales. Industry wisdom reckons that around a third of shoppers who sample a product will buy it on the same trip.

Stiltz gives product demonstrations in our showrooms in the West Midlands, Berkshire and West Yorkshire.  We also attended accessibility expo Naidex, the Homebuilding and Renovation Show and will be at next year’s Ideal Home Show.  Our database of “star customers” who really rate our products features people willing to show their lifts to prospective customers in their home.

Demonstrations don’t have to be in person. Many organisations have achieved success selling the likes of skin care or cleaning products through TikTok, Facebook and Instagram videos. Social media can be quicker and cheaper with a wider reach than in-person demonstrations, though there is vast online competition for people’s attention.

Don’t assume much customer knowledge about your product. Be clear about what it does, how it can impact their lives and don’t use jargon. Even a tech-savvy consumer wants things explained simply and engagingly to them.

Free samples and money-back guarantees let consumers try before they buy. They are particularly valuable for start-ups or companies moving into new territories with little brand recognition. Stiltz, Hillarys Blinds and Sharps furniture make effective use of salespeople visiting customers at home. This approach works if your sales team care about the consumer they are seeing. They should make sure a product is right for their needs and home. They should treat buyers in a respectful manner, not going for the hard sell.

Pressuring people into purchasing something they don’t really want might work for some sharp operators, in the short time, but it is no way to build a lasting reputation or business platform.

Be clear on buying motives

Discover what matters most to your customers, then build your marketing and processes around that. Is it speed of delivery, say, trust in customer service, product quality or a combination of factors?

Bloom & Wild has disrupted the flower market, for instance, by providing a letter-box friendly format which means people don’t have to stay for hours to take deliveries. HelloFresh solves the problem of loving to cook but not having enough time with pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step recipe cards.

The benefit of DTC is you get ongoing feedback from your customer base on what motivates them to purchase, so make sure you listen closely. It can feed into product research and development, as it does at Stiltz.

‍Build community‍

If you don’t have a visibility in shops, you need to keep your products prominent in people’s minds through online chat groups, offers for existing customers, accessible feedback loops and customer-events days. These create brand loyalty and a sense that your company is part of people’s lives.

Community turns buyers into advocates, which is far cheaper than paid acquisition.

Create a Facebook page discussing issues and solutions around your product sector. Try fun TikTok stunts such as the viral videos youngsters posted of their older relatives using Stiltz homelifts set to the themes of Game of Thrones or ITV dating show Take Me Out.

Stay in regular contact with customers by email. Send seasonal messages and share customer stories from other users. Poll customers asking them which charities they feel you should support or ask them to share videos and pictures of their pets, say, to celebrate International Pet Day.

Be easy to do business with ‍

Create 24-hour order and service lines, if budget allows. Make sure your website is simple to navigate, and offer sales visits in the evenings and at weekends.

“The customer is always right” should be a particularly strong mantra if you are dealing with them direct. Offering attentive, open service builds trust and retention, which is of course, much cheaper than acquiring new customers.

Know your compliance ‍

DTC creates obligations around consumer law, contracts of sale, and advertising guidelines. You need to be watertight with claims you make in your marketing and on your website.

If a salesperson secures a purchase in a customer’s house, there may be a14-day cooling off period and this needs to be made very clear to buyers. Contracts need to be clear and use plain English, or you can fall foul of bodies such as Trading Standards. TV ads must be approved by regulatory body Clearcast and any assertions substantiated.

Be data-driven, not just instinct-driven

Track customer behaviour and personalise follow-ups. Even small businesses can use CRM tools, such as HubSpot and Pipedrive.

Pay acute attention to the likes of phone-number tracking from print advertisements, Google analytics and attributions. The more you know about how your audience reacts to communications, the better placed you are to target forensically.

Try assigning a unique telephone number to every press, social media or TV advert so you can track how they perform. There are specific platforms which provide this service. Some times of day or specific wording might work best for you, so monitor this and refine your approach.

Simple things like different coloured marketing envelopes can have an impact.

The detailed information you get about customers by selling direct allows you to personalise offers to them, a tremendous way of upselling and building brand loyalty.

Lachlan Faulkner is Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder of Stiltz, the UK's leading homelift provider. The award-winning company manufactures, supplies and installs homelifts to cater for the widest possible end-user needs. 

‍