Sell More Smartphones than Ever

By Allan Pulga

Smartphones used to be strictly business. As in, only corporate types would be seen using BlackBerrys, Treos and the like. All that, of course, has changed. Last year marked an important turning point in smartphone marketing; companies made cheaper, multimedia-oriented devices directed at a broader audience.

Now trendy soccer moms and even broke college students are rocking Motorola Qs and BlackBerry Pearls. And with the advent of the potentially revolutionary Apple iPhone, the smartphone is poised to be more popular than ever.

Question is: Are you prepared to sell more smartphones than ever before?

2007 is going to be a banner year for the smartphone. You and your staff should be ready to sell and upgrade customers to what could be the biggest handset sensation since the RAZR.

You’ll need to do two things to effectively sell more smartphones:

1. Know your product

2. Know your market

The newest smartphones offer so many mobile options beyond talking and text messaging: web navigation, e-mail, photo, video, music, video games, VoIP and so on. In order to convey this wealth of functionality and the VALUE of these options to customers you need to know how all of the bells and whistles work AND why a customer simply cannot do without them.

Train your salespeople to go through hands-on demonstrations with customers. Guide customers through each of the 3G functions and explain the benefits of having such options on a mobile phone. It’s extremely important to underline the difference between a conventional handset and a smartphone. Nobody needs to be buying a fancy smartphone if they’re not going to make good use its extras, right? Well…

This can be delicate. While you don’t want to push smartphones on people who clearly won’t be using the device to its full potential, you don’t want to discourage potential ‘status buyers’ who simply want the hottest, most expensive phone on the market. If they want it, sell it to them.

The smartphone buyer landscape is evolving. A few years ago, only businesspeople and bureaucrats bothered with the bulky PDAs and the only real bonus was being able to check e-mail on the go.

Today, with handset manufacturers dropping the price of smartphones to around $200 US, shrinking them shorter and thinner than ever, and loading them with attractive, usable features and entertainment extras, basically anybody is fair game.

Last month, Telephia Research released penetration stats for smartphone buyers in Europe and the U.S. Western Europe (including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.) showed 8.8 per cent penetration versus 3.8 per cent in the U.S. The highest percentages were in Italy and Spain (19.2 and 9.5 respectively); the lowest were in Germany and France (4.9 and 3.5). It’s quite clear there is plenty of room for the U.S. smartphone market to grow.

Important demographic growth areas include college grads, affluent working women, and members of the burgeoning Asian-American population.*

It’s also important to know Apple’s iPhone will be priced at $499 or $599 (4GB or 8GB models). This means the soon-to-be premium smartphone will be quite expensive for the average customer, thus making it even easier to sell him/her a $200 Q, Treo, BlackBerry, BlackJack, or what have you. Several analysts are expecting the iPhone buzz to not jeopardize but help such competitors in the smartphone market by increasing demand for 3G devices.