Have you ever asked yourself “Why don’t they buy from me?”
Let’s take a quick look and see if we can figure it out.
It all starts with “marketing.”
Marketing, according to the American Marketing Association or AMA, is “the process of communicating with customers and society.” I remember in my first market course that our text book considered it a business’ only means of communications with the outside world.
In my business, I provide a marketing tool to my customers that helps them deliver their message to their customers and prospective customers.
What do you think the purpose of marketing is?
Basically, marketing is supposed to do 3 things:
- Capture your prospect’s attention
- Educate your prospect about the key information they’ll need to make the “right decision,” and
- Help your prospect take the next step.
In the end, Marketing is the stuff that earns your company money. For that reason, if you Google “Marketing” you’ll get 233 Million hits. If you look for books about marketing, you’ll find about 191,000 of them. Needless to say, it’s a big topic, and everybody would really like to know more about it.
So let’s narrow it down, and just concentrate on the second point: Educating your prospect.
Every consumer wants to make the best buying decision, whether it’s for themselves, personally, or for their business. Nobody goes shopping and says “I’d like to settle for second best. Or something mediocre.” No, we all want to make the best decision, even if it isn’t our own money.
When we’re shopping for something…something that you sell…everyone faces the same problem: they’re not experts at what you do.
They don’t know what the right decision is.
They need help.
That’s marketing’s job. To help the consumer. By educating them.
When most companies think about “marketing,” they assume you’re talking about advertising. You know, the stuff that Don Draper and Mad Men. Their advertising isn’t much different today that it was in the 60’s. Most businesses fall back on what I call “The Fantastic Four.”
- Your name
- Your Location
- A Laundry list of your products or services
- Clichés like: we’re the best, your success is our success, the lowest price guaranteed, Quality is Job 1, we’re not happy until you’re happy, an educated consumer is our best customer, and We have to EARN your business every day.
There’s a phrase in marketing: “To be terrific you’ve got to be specific”. That’s basic marketing.
What you have to offer the public all starts with your brand promise. What do you have to offer?
What do you do? How do you do it?”
That’s all classic. Today, you’ve got to go further, because we live in an age of brand proliferation, and of hyper competition. So you’ve actually got to think about the customer.
What does your target market want? What are their problems? Their needs? Their aspirations?
In short, what’s important to your prospects when buying what you sell?
We call these most important points “hot buttons.”
Only when you take the time to discover these “hot buttons” can you address them and show your prospective buyer how you solve their problems.
So, who is your prospective customer? And what are their hot buttons?
When I’m working with a new client, I start by asking what I call Discovery Questions.
- What causes your typical prospect to start to think about buying what you sell?
- What’s important to your customer when buying what you sell?
- What does your customer need to know to buy what you offer?
- What do you do to give customers what they want?
- What to your prospects need to see to feel that they have enough information to make the best decision possible? That includes the possible advantages, pitfalls, and buying traps.
That’s where the “presentation” part of this presentation ends. Now I’d like to hear from you.
Who thinks their marketing is based on this kind of information? Whose advertising does more than just offer the Fantastic Four?
Who has some examples: brochures, website home pages, advertisements?