When considering how you’re going to market and position your business, always keep in mind one simple fact: your customers want you to make their companies and lives better. Does your marketing clearly let them know how you can do just that? Or are you merely telling them facts about how great your products are and hoping something will stick? If you want to streamline your marketing for greater effect and greater returns, it’s time to start selling your worth. In other words, cut out over-inflated marketing that talks up a storm about your company and product, and focus on selling the value you can bring your customers.
Show How You Create Success for Your Customers
Your audience is wondering one thing: "What’s in it for me?" Remember, your customers are seeing a lot of marketing messages on a daily basis. From social media to TV to billboards, we all see a staggering number of marketing messages in a day. If you want yours to stand out from the crowd, hone your focus to highlight the value you bring to your customers. Speak directly to their needs and instead of seeming like just another piece of marking to ignore or toss in the trash, your message will become relevant.
Understand Your Audience
If you want to show your customers what value you can bring them, you need to understand who they are and what they want. What are their pain points? What problems do they have that you can help them solve, and how can you help solve them? Answering these questions will get you right to the heart of what your business can do for them, which is the very thing they want to know.
Demographics such as age, professional status, and family dynamics can help you in this quest, but to really understand your customers and their needs, you have to dig deeper and find out what they are concerned about and what you can do about it. You can find out what brings customers to your business in the first place by looking at search terms and where your traffic comes from. Tune in to social media as well, to find out what your customers are talking about and what problems they need solved.
Focus on Benefits
It's clear by now that your marketing needs to focus on the benefits you can provide for your customers and what's in it for them, not on lists of features or specifications. But, what does that really mean?
Say for example you are selling a piece of software that offers comprehensive metrics. The metrics themselves are a feature. Even saying "metrics to help you understand your business" doesn't go far enough when it comes to selling the benefits to your customers. Instead, let them know that the metrics can help them increase their revenue by offering a clear look at their business performance, or save them hours of time spent on analyzing complex metrics, freeing them up to focus on their business.
Your customers are waiting for you to solve their problems. Show them clearly how you can do that and you'll craft a marketing message that really works, boosting your sales and your reputation.
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- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
John Foley Jr. is the CEO of interlinkONE and Grow Socially. John and his team help printers get on a strong path to marketing success. Their approach includes software solutions, consulting, Website development, marketing audits, and strategic marketing plans. interlinkONE’s software solutions for the print industry include their marketing automation platform, MAX, and ilinkONE V8. Learn more about MAX: Marketing Automation. Executed. by visiting MarketWithMAX.com, John at JohnFoleyJr.com, and his companies at interlinkONE.com and GrowSocially.com.