Sell what your market really wants
I’m going to give you an insight into a basic fundamental of any marketing or advertising campaign, that is overlooked by small businesses 90% of the time.
“Who are you selling to and WHAT are they really buying from you”
Now this may seem like a simple question with an obvious answer. But when we are trying to sell we need to look at this question from another perspective.
Firstly who are we selling to?
We are not selling to everyone and if you are currently trying to sell to everyone, you and flushing you advertising dollars down the drain. We need to understand exactly who the people who are buying or going to buy our product are. Only then can we get these people excited about buying our products through advertising and sales messages that pushes the hot buttons of people who will actually take money out of their pocket and hand it to us.
Just say we are selling a book that teaches people ” How to make a living day trading the stock market”.
Now there are a lot of people when they see the title of your book will quickly skim by, and it doesn’t matter what offer we put on the table they have no interest in the stock market, they believe it’s to risky and they don’t believe its possible to make money in the stock market. So if we where to run a ppc (pay per click) ad that was quite general in the hope we could convert these people into buyers. We are wasting our very small opportunity to catch our target prospects attention.
Ok so once we have pinpointed our target market we need to research this market. We need to actively get involved and see what are these peoples needs, wants, what are these people afraid of? what are these people excited about?
Then and only then can we start to sell them the benefits of what we have to offer.
Because these people are not buying a book with symbols on a page. They are buying a dream, they are buying financial freedom, they are buying a college education from there kids, they are buying a early retirement. And it is only when we can spell it out for these people that that is what our product can offer will these people be willing to hand over their hard earned cash.
So where do we begin our research.
- First we must identify our target markets. Be specific and then branch out until you find a market that will be happy to receive your proposal and get great value from it, but that you don’t have to dilute your targeted sales pitch and risk losing those people who are ready to buy.
- Second we must find where these people are. ( The internet has made research that much easier. Get involved in discussions and forums where your market will be, join facebook groups and start conversations that will encourage prospects to reveal there desires, read industry publications). It takes work but the rewards will be well worth it.
- Then we must use the information we have gained about our target market to create a sales pitch that speaks directly to their current wants and needs. If you can do this you are already miles ahead of the crowd and you are now ready to develop your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
I hoped you enjoyed my first blog post and I will keep them coming. Next week we will look at developing our USP. We will find out what we can offer that no-one else can and building a sales message around the benefits of doing business with you. Once we do that then we are no longer forced to compete in pricing wars and they will be happy to pay because we have educated buyers as to the true value of our product or service.
Cheers