Marketing: It’s Just Like Dating! No, Really

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: EDUCATE TO EARN MORE

In order for you to be successful at selling your services or products, people must know what they’re buying, and how it will help them. It’s your job to educate them, so they can decide if your offerings will work for them. Right off the bat, you need to answer these two critical questions:

Is your service or product the best fit, price, and performer for their goals?

What do you deliver that they may not even be aware they need

I see this situation arising repeatedly and even have clients who sought me out because they had invaluable products and services, but they just weren’t meeting their desired revenue goals.

I work with immensely creative training firms that are transforming corporations through the universal language of music; supremely educated lawyers bringing vast value and experience to clients; coaches who can unleash potential their clients had no idea they possessed; physical therapists who have saved over 80 percent of their patients from having back surgery. Pretty impressive, right? Sure, these visionaries all offer enormous benefits to their clients, but like many professionals, they were struggling to sell their services at the level they are worth.

Why?

BREAK IT DOWN
Educating clients about a company’s value takes time. When looking for specific services, most consumers lack the extra hours needed to do their homework, and read every article, book, or website about a company whom they may wish to hire.

My own experience with this is noted below.

But as a business owner, it’s critical that you educate potential clients fully so they will grasp (and pay) for the full value of your products or services. It makes great business sense to break it down and educate potential clients a little at a time, on a continuous basis.

SIMILARITIES OF MARKETING AND DATING
When you think about it, marketing is a lot like dating. The first “date” is your brochure – your client or customer takes the proverbial walk on the beach, and gets to know you to see if your values or needs are a match in any way.

If so, your prospect may want a second date – to read your website or bio.

By the third date, your prospect has a pretty clear idea of how this relationship (your product or service) fits, and whether it’s right or wrong for them. And quite likely by this time, the prospect is ready to go deeper into the relationship (i.e., make a purchase). When you arrive at this point, closing the sale is akin to tying the knot—it’s the final act of commitment.

MY OWN EXPERIENCE
Recently, I needed to set up QuickBooks so my assistant could access it virtually – but she works on a Mac and I work on a PC. I emailed my bookkeeper, who referred a local service that could “house” QuickBooks on their server. Supposedly the solution would be fast and not too expensive, and the interface would work on both a Mac and PC. Great … except I had no idea about the server company’s reliability or value, its ability to help as issues might arise, or how the process would actually work.

To educate me (at this point in our courtship) the owner walked me through an online demo, and advised that she would be sending references I could check. With no effort on my part, we had already moved onto our second date.

Then I read through her entire marketing kit. I learned she has some excellent experience and big-picture abilities; this built my trust that she could handle any little problems that might arise using QuickBooks virtually.

Our third “date” will be for me to check her references; within a week, I expect that I will have hired this service. Why? Because the business owner made the education process so fast, simple, and enjoyable for me. Plus, I’m quickly getting educated about her qualifications, how responsive she is, and enjoy our interactions, which is allowing me to build trust with her company’s services.

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO YOUR COMPANY?
If you’re not regularly getting the word out about the various levels of services/products you offer, you’re not educating your potential clients to use everything you bring to the table. If it only takes a bit of education to reach your goals, why sell yourself short? Why shouldn’t you get all the business you could ever want?

This is what marketing communications is all about.

I find there are so many reasons for lack of education or communication, and that often a simple solution can easily be found:

Problem

Lack of time and resources

Solution

Don’t try to do it all yourself. Hire writers, designers, web teams, search engine specialists, publicists, researchers, and affordable packages of service to help you create a plan, develop client-educational materials or communications.

Problem

Discomfort writing about your services

Solution

Create a podcastso you can educate people by talking about what you offer. Set up interviews that feature you as the subject expert, sharing insights, tips, lessons, or even meditations that will help your clients. It’s like having your own online radio show, which your clients can access anytime, anywhere. To see how it works, take a look at our podcasting production package

Problem

Sometimes business owners just don’t know what to say

Solution

Let a marketing coach get you on track, offer you guidance on how to earn more, clarify your key marketing messages, and help create your educational materials.

Problem

Your website isn’t being found on Google

Solution

Optimize your website and get your site properly programmed. Before you hire an optimizer as if they’ve achieved #1 rankings on Google and Yahoo!

Problem

You believe your potential clients should already understand all of your abilities

Solution

Ask them! Most likely, they won’t know even 40 percent of what you offer, how you’re unique or special, or when they could use your services. It’s an unfortunate fact of life: In the business world we have many things to consume our attention, and we’re extremely busy. So keep in touch regularly, briefly, and often. And if you made it through this non-brief “lesson,” congratulations!

When you get hordes of new clients as a result of this strategy, it will have been worth the read! After all, Knowledge is Bliss.