Marketing is about convincing those who find value in your product or service that you are not only the best choice, you are the only real choice to provide a solution to their situation.
Let’s break that down:
Marketing is about convincing:
At the end of the day, effective marketing is about converting prospects into buyers. Depending on the level of awareness of your prospect, a lot of convincing may be required.
You may need to convince the prospect that they actually do have a situation that needs resolving, convince them that it is urgent enough to warrant their attention, and then convince them that your solution is the one they should apply.
And of course, before you can make any of this happen, you have to convince someone to click on a link on social media or Google, then convince them to sign up to your mailing list, convince them to open one or more emails, and convince them to click on the link in the email. In today’s world it is rare that someone buys on first contact.
Fair enough, it is impossible to convince everybody all of the time. However, the better you are at convincing people to take the next step, the more people will make it through your sales funnel, and turn into clients or customers.
Marketing is about people who find value in your offer:
Buying is about an exchange of value. If your client or customer feels that they did not receive the expected value from the transaction, they may ask for their money back, and/or tell others that they have had a poor experience when doing business with you.
On the flip side of the proverbial coin, however, delivering more value than anticipated will result in repeat sales and referrals.
However, before you get to that point, you have to be sure that you are offering something of real value to those who will be buyers of your offer.
If you have to sell, in our estimation you are doing something wrong. The only people you even want to reach are those who will find real value in your offer and become buyers because the product or service provides a solution to their situation. You don’t want people feeling cheated, If they do, they are likely to tell others about their “poor experience” in dealing with you.
In addition to that, selling to someone who is unlikely to experience value when acquiring your product or service, is likely to be a “tough sell”. They will need more convincing than someone who actually needs or wants what you offer.
Logically speaking, if you market your offer to the wrong people, or even just indiscriminately, your conversion rate (from visitor to customer or client) will be a lot lower, meaning that you will spend a lot more money to reach your earnings target.
Marketing is about reaching the right people:
Well, there are two sides to this one as well…
1. Firstly, determine your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If your product or service had been custom made for one specific person, who would be over the moon with what you offer, what would that person be like? What combination of needs, wants, requirements, income, and other characteristics would this person have?
Would it be someone in a specific line of business, someone of a specific gender, someone with a specific set of needs or wants, or would it be a person or business in a specific income bracket?
2. Once you have determined your ICP, all you have to do is to figure out how you can reach similar people, and try to target your marketing to that audience.
Marketing is about showing people you are the logical choice:
When you view your ICP process as building a picture and personality of an actual person, and do it properly, you will find that your ICP has some very specific needs.
In addition to that, if you have to compete against major players in the marketplace, figure out how you can differentiate your offer from theirs.
What you do may in fact be similar to other offers, but if you can create a perception of uniqueness you can stand out. Market your offer as something custom made for your ideal customer with a specific set of requirements (and focus on those which your competitors are not using as their main selling points).
This is commonly referred to as “positioning” in the marketing world. Position yourself to attract the attention of the right people, and then make them an offer which they feel was tailor made for them.
In short:
Create an offer which provides great value to a “specific person”.
Market your offer to people similar to your “ideal customer”.
Position your offer as a tailor made solution which will do what they want it to, and then some.
When you have all of these in place, you will need a lot less convincing, and a higher percentage of prospects with do business with you.
Some people would refer to that as a “well oiled marketing machine” – because by combining all of the above you will remove as much of the friction from the sales process as is possible.
The bottom line is this:
If you do everything right -from the start – getting new clients or customers has been simplified and in the end less expensive.