What is Your Why For Your Marketing Strategy?
Welcome back. Today I’d like to talk about what a good marketing strategy is in order to increase sales. I will also write about what doesn’t work and why so that you can figure out how you want to move forward with your strategy.
Since the creation of mail advertising, tv, and the internet there has been a great focus on marketing. Now that we as a society have evolved and become smarter, the old way of marketing features and benefits has had to evolve. Just buying the biggest ad in the yellow pages will not work these days.
When people meet us as sales professionals, organizations, institutions they are asking three questions. Today let’s focus on the third question with the assumption that we have answered the first two correctly. This third question is “How Can You Help Me?” If we are going to market to people about us being the best option, we better be focused on answering that question correctly.
If we don’t answer that question, well they will move on down the road to the next person in line. They will also start thinking about what we offer as a commodity if we are not answering that question. If we become a commodity then the only differentiating factor is price. There is no winning strategy for commodities. We need to differentiate ourselves from the competition.
People do not buy features and benefits as the answer to the question above. We must focus on answering the needs of the customer. That is right customers want a solution to their needs. To figure out what needs our offering answers, then we need to ask questions, but to who?
The answer to that question is ask our current customers why they buy from us. What is it that made them desire our offering? Why do they stick with us when there are other offerings out there? Why do people still flock to Apple for their products when there are other products out there that compete on the same performance as Apple? We need to understand why our customers love our offerings and stick with us as repeat customers.
To do that there are tons of tools out there, but I recommend two. Surveys and testimonials are what I recommend. Surveys upon purchase helps in the later steps of the sales process as I teach, but also help get fresh feedback at the time of purchase as to why the customer decided to do business with us. This is fresh insight without outside influence and time that will allow our customers to forget. The other is testimonials. These testimonials work so great because of the law of “Social Proof” that others will follow because of that influence.
That is right, we need to be asking our current customers why they are doing business with us because this is the key to understand how and what we should be marketing. We will see a trend as well with all of the surveys and testimonials that will show us the path to our marketing strategy.
I know this seems backwards in the process, but our customers are the ones that can tell us the why so that we can structure out strategy. Many organizations fail to understand why the customers do business with them and march in a totally different direction leading to mediocre results. We need to understand so we can chart out course correctly to attract more of our tribe.
Answer that third question by asking questions to current customers will allow us to win at this marketing game. Especially when there is so much noise out there to confuse and turn off customers.
Start today to understand your current customers and then you will overcome the competition and stay out of the commodity arena!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
How To Create A Sales And Marketing Strategy
If a slogan will not cure all of our needs for marketing and sales, then what do we do?
Welcome back!
Today, I’d like to talk about how to create a sales and marketing strategy that will grow your customer base with a solid foundation. That’s right just like building a house, we need to have a solid foundation before we can build the rest of our strategy.
Most people think that its about a catchy slogan that is memorable and exciting. That is what will draw the customers in. The problem with this is that it takes time, a great deal of time to generate traction. Look at a few slogans that are known now, but when they were created.
Just Do It – Nike 1988,
America Runs On Dunkin – Dunkin Donuts 2006,
Breakfast of Champions – Wheaties 1973.
If we want to wait for our slogans to take off, we may be waiting for a while before they catch on. It’s not a bad idea to have one, but we need to focus on a foundation to build on. And yes, it all takes time. There is no instant success. All that believe in overnight success, should look at the data.
If a slogan will not cure all of our needs for marketing and sales, then what do we do?
We need to build on that foundation and the first thing we need to do is answer the three questions our customers are asking:
Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
How can you help me?
If we are not focusing on answering these three questions right away with our sales and marketing strategy, then we are going to fall into the commodity category. If that happens the only differentiating factor is price. No one wins in this category, especially the customer. Lower cost means less quality in 99% of cases.
We also have to understand that customers do not instantly like us. If we want to really have a mental picture to wrap our heads around, we should think of them like cats. Cats don’t just instantly love us. They are independent and take time to warm up to us. Once they have warmed up to us, they will finally allow us to pet them. That in itself does not mean they love us yet either. We need to cultivate the relationship.
To cultivate that relationship, we need to give things away. It is hard to receive anything with a closed fist. The only way to receive is with an open hand. We need to give things away for free. The easiest way to do that is by giving information. No, I am not saying giving away your secret sauce in totality, but I am saying you need to give pieces of the solution away. That is what I consistently do for all of you. I give you weekly blog posts, videos, etc to help you in your strategy creation.
This also take a while to generate, but if you do it in the correct order, you too can generate a great deal of interest in just a matter of months instead of years. Would you like to have customers coming to you in decades with a slogan, or in months with giving away content? How long do you have to wait?
The focus will need to be giving away as much as we can. Create content that will add value to the customers and they will appreciate us and look to us in the future for help. Heck they may even turn into sales people for us that we don’t even need to pay. Wouldn’t that be nice!?!
Focus on adding value every single day that we show up and how we can answer the three questions above. Make that the core to all of our sales and marketing strategies and we will gain traction.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”