Implications, Emotion In Marketing and Sales
People don’t buy until they are in touch with their emotions. Emotion and motivation are closely linked. You can have a buyer that knows they need your product or service, but if they are not motivated to solve the problem, they won’t buy!
Any major purchase (excluding bubble gum or a cheap watch, etc.) is an emotional decision that we justify with logic.
People either buy to solve a problem (some pain or negative consequence) or for status (emotion & power). The best sales people help the customer to understand why they are buying. In the process, it gets the customer in touch with the emotion and motivation to buy.
Probing Questions To Uncover Implications (cost of not buying)
- What are you dissatisfied with in ___________ (your business, industry, marketing etc)?
- What is your biggest unresolved business problem? What are you doing about it? If nothing is being done about it… ask why?
- If ________ (problem) is not resolved, what would the implications be?
- How specifically would that affect you?
- What would the cost be? ($$, time, energy, reputation, dissatisfaction)
- How would you feel?
- What would ________ (person) think?
Staying Power
The key in this step is to have staying power. If you are going to probe and get people in touch with a bunch of emotions (some probably negative) don’t leave them there without going through the rest of the sales process.
Think about how you would you if someone came in and got you disturbed, frustrated and confused? Would you want to see that person again? Probably not! Be careful you don’t set up a negative association (anchor) to you, your company or product.
Business to Business Website Do’s and Don’ts
I have failed at online marketing more than anyone I know - my hope is to share what I have learned so you do not waste the time and money I did.
Do’s
1) Start with a Blog, not a website. What is a blog? Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.
Why a blog? Because you can add information, delete, reorganize it easier than any other system. Plus a blog will get ranked better and faster than a regular website because when you engage in conversations (make comments) in other blogs, it gives you important inbound links. The search engines tend to view blogs like news sites, valuable, timely content that needs to get out quickly.
2) Use your blog to post tips and articles weekly. When I began, I simply wrote about what I learned that week coaching clients. I changed the names and kept the information generic enough that even my customers would not recognize themselves as the subject.
3) Comment and participate in small business blogs and forums. It will improve your websites ranking, because it will include a link back to your website from your comments within the small business discussion forums, and blogs. Plus it will give you much needed practice writing online.
4) Podcasting I think every coach should have a blog and a podcast. A podcast is your own online radio show. You can listen to mine at: http://www.sbishere.com/buyingabusiness/ dollar for dollar and time spent podcasting has generated a better return on my investment than anything else I have done except for using my blog as a foundation to engage visitors.
5) Choose your keywords carefully. Include keywords for your market area i.e. “Small Business Coach located in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia” as opposed to “Home”. The keywords that appear in the title of your blog/article are the single most important thing you can do to attract the right type of visitor. Plus if you use the host I recommend http://www.hostm.com/ their service comes with a tool to research keywords for free (I used to pay $500/year for a similar tool).
6) Write often and regularly. The more you write the more congruent you become and the better you get at explaining what you do. After all, if you have trouble explaining what you do in a few seconds imagine how confused the visitors to your website are. Writing will help you find and define an identity.
7) Read often, websites, blogs, newspapers, magazines, and books. They will give you ideas that you can use as subjects to write and comment about on your blog.
Don’ts
1) Do not spend a lot of money building a website. For $100/year you can get a website with a blog by pushing a few buttons. mediatemple.net is the host I use and they are as good as the one I used to pay $300/mth for a dedicated server. I used to have a bunch of sites and blogs and am in the process of condensing them all into just one blog. Mine is at: smallbusinesstransitions.com
2) Avoid building a website as an online brochure. Build a value engine, with articles and content written by you about coaching and business topics. It will add value to the visitors experience and give them a reason to come back.
3) Patience is key. Do not expect a lot from your website in the first year. You are laying a foundation. Understand that it will take between 6-12 months before you start showing in Google. They sandbox new websites to make sure they stick around.
Image from Wikipedia
4) Don’t try to understand how the search engines and websites work. If you have a blog, write regularly, and post comments on other blogs and forums - eventually they will come. Because the inbound links from those other forums, and blogs will help your rankings at the search engines and thus drive people to your blog. Not to mention that you will get traffic from the links in the other blogs and forums.
5) Don’t sweat how much traffic you get to your website. I used to get as many as 20,000 visitors a month to my website, all looking for free information. Today, I have focused my content and carefully chosen my keywords and I only get 4,000-8,000 visitors per month but they are much more qualified and better prospects.
6) Don’t submit your website to search engines. Never buy a package that is going to submit your website to 128,546 search engines and directories. Those are link farms, scams and will actually decrease your ranking in search engines. When John links to you from your website, the search engines will find you. Plus if they find you on their own it improves your rankings.
7) Don’t hard sell on your website. Tone down the hype. Be yourself. In our business, the goal of the website is to get a lead not make a sale.
I view a website as a tool to attract online visitors, build a relationship, and engage them in a conversation - a lead generation tool. Because once a small business owner contacts you from your website, it is just like they walked into a retail store - they are intent on doing business.
Shifting Needs of Baby Boomers
Chances are your business has made a lot of money serving the baby boomer demographic and the longer you have been in business, the more money you have made or are making serving baby boomers.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that for some businesses, the outlook is not so great - question is will you be one of the businesses benefiting or hurting from the demographic shifts? Read on to learn more.
Simple Facts
The generation that follows Baby Boomer’s is Gen X which is approx. 85% the size of the baby boomer segment.
As boomers age and exit buying your product or service the pie shrinks. (source Kenneth W. Gronbach, KGC Direct)
As the baby boom generation entered a market they reshaped it by pushing demand through the roof. When, they needed to furnish their first home or new car manufacturers could not build them fast enough. When boomers stop buying certain products and services the same thing happens, in reverse, your revenue drops.
Are you prepared?
Most business people do not think ahead to anticipate what will happen when the baby boomer stops buying their goods or services. You can start selling to the Gen X market, except the size of that generation is just 85% the size of the boomers.
Tracking Age Bands Over a Decade (read Management Gap)
Perhaps the fact that the Gen X’rs are just 85% of the baby boomers is enough to get your attention. I decided to look ahead and see what happens to our workforce over the next 10 years.
Look at What Happens to The Pie
As you can see by 2010 the total number of Baby Boomers in the workforce could drop from 44% to 33% and the number of Gen X’rs drops from 42% to 40% by 2010 with the number of Gen X’s increasing to 44% in 2015.
(click to view larger versions)
While my approach to coming up with these numbers is not scientific, it does show the general trend and if true, illustrates that recruiting and keeping Gen X’s to manage your business will be a real challenge over the next decade. Add in the number of baby boomers leaving the workforce and we have a potential crises in the making.
If you haven’t yet felt the impact of baby boomers reducing or stopping purchases of your goods or services you will eventually. Unless you adjust and your products and services to meet their changing needs.
Knowing this you can begin to plan now and approach major business decisions from a more realistic and matter-of-fact perspective. Which is always better than having your head stuck in the sand.
Nice Trumps Price
Image from Wikipedia
Hyper competitive markets eventually crack the fabric of goodwill that is the fundamental business driver in a capitalist market. When goodwill is fractured trust and goodwill is replaced by the confrontation, frustration and low-ball pricing tactics
Hyper Competitive Markets Create Noise and Pollution
Unfortunately, the customer gets caught in the middle having to sort out who is telling the truth and who is passing the buck. Customers learn to filter out the wheat from the chaff.
This all leads to a marketing battle with everyone shouting trying to get the customers attention. This creates doubt and the customer making a decision using the last tactic they have left - buying from the lowest-cost provider. That way if they do make a mistake in their purchasing decision it will at least be a ‘cheap mistake’. Not exactly a nice way of doing business.
Why Nice Beats Price
You simply cannot turn on the ‘nice factor’ and expect to succeed. It has to be congruent with who you really are and what your company is really about. Faking it is not an option because customers have really good crap detectors today. They are looking for the real thing.
Real, Genuine and Responsive is a Competitive Strategy
Customers are sick and tired of choking on hype, broken promises, and senseless chatter. They want to do business with nice people working for a genuine company that respects and appreciates staff and customers - businesses who keep their word, provide real value, and are responsive to their customers’ needs.
Traits of a Genuine (nice) Business
- They keep their promises.
- They ignore the competition.
- Treat the customer the way they would want to be treated.
- Earn your ‘business’ by earning your trust.
- Create a great customer experience.
- Focus on serving customers versus marketing to prospects that know nothing about them.
- Rely on Word-of-Mouth advertising.
- Make everything easy for their customers.
- Tend to offer an end-to-end solution.
- Everyone in the company is a salesperson and part of the customer service department.
Marketing Success = Understanding Customer Needs & Expectations
Customers are looking to do business with companies that understand their needs, wants, emotions and perceptions. Therefore the first thing you need to do is to make sure you understand needs, wants, emotions and perceptions or as I call it NWEP.
Customer Preferences Foundation to Marketing Strategy
Your strategy is to position your business at the same level as the majority of the buyers you are targeting.
You can go just as broke positioning your product or service above, as below the marketplace! Remember, look for the biggest bulge of buyers for your specific product or service and then package your product or service to meet their needs head on!
Package Your Business To Meet Their Needs
The concept is to direct all your company resources toward your best prospects. To communicate in such a way that all your communications vehicles (brochures, web site, logo, ads, etc) clearly mirrors your targeted audiences’ most wanted needs and desires in your product or service.
With a ‘NWEP Profile’ of your ideal customer, you will be able to create brochures, web site and a business model that is in ‘alignment’ with the customers’ point of view. This valuable information can then be used to:
- speed and simplify development of your marketing tools (brochure, web site, sales calls etc.).
- eliminate the need to re-engineer your business model because your marketing and sales plan did not achieve its goals and objectives.
- reduce lost opportunities.
- build marketing momentum.
Another tactic is to create an image of your product, service or company that transcends the facts. The purpose is to associate your product or service with positive or desired values, which have little or nothing to do with the product itself but are sought after by your target market.
Needs (The most urgent or essential feeling)
The customer or prospect identifies a need. Something has happened or prompted a new awareness of a specific need. It is usually something the customer does not have or a need that is not currently being met. Identify those unmet needs.
Wants (Desire, wish or deficiency)
Now the prospect is seeking information to meet a specific need. Remember. people buy things to solve a problem. What problem (s) does your product or service solve. No problem = No need = No sale. Continue to work on this until you uncover a specific problem (solution) that your product or service provides.
Emotions
Any major purchase is made based on emotions and justified with logic. What emotions do you observe in the decision making process? Identify them and evaluate how emotions help or hinder the customer to evaluate the alternatives. Remember, the larger the purchase, the greater the consideration.
Perceptions
What are the negative and positive perceptions that customers have about you, your company and its services? How do they affect the purchasing and decision making process?
Target Needs Not Customers
Describe the different attributes of each service that adds value for each target market. To some degree the demographics, psychographics and geographic location of your primary, secondary and tertiary segments will dictate their preferences for a specific product or service.
In the markets you have chosen, what do they want?
- Less stress.
- Save money.
- Experience a smooth transition on move-in day.
- More safety.
- Simplicity.
Simple Trick
One trick I like to use is to pretend that the customer is actually my employer. Think about that for a moment - if they are your ‘boss’, you will listen to them and let them tell you:
- What they want to buy.
- How they want it.
- How much they are willing to pay.
- Where and when they want it.
They will also tell you what else they expect for their money.
Customer Preferences Will Make or Break Your Marketing
I define marketing as the process by which information about a product or service designed to meet a need - real or otherwise - is communicated to those who have the need. The process can take place on the spur of the moment or be planned. However, the goal is always the same. To get people to ‘consider’ the merits of whatever is being sold.
When done well, they will want to investigate further or acquire the item or service. Now you have a process to gain greater understanding of your market.
Differences Between B2B and B2C Marketers
Originally, I saw this via The Center for New Media and immediately clicked through to the source, B2B Magazine website. I found some really interesting findings for Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers:
The report found that B2B and B2C marketers plan to increase their new media budgets this year, with 78% of B2C marketers and 66% of B2B marketers reporting budget increases for new media.
Only 3% of B2B respondents said they planned to spend less on new media this year.
Differences in Marketing Plans Between B2B and B2C Marketers (% of each group)
You can download a free copy of the complete survey results at the B2B Magazine website. The 18 page PowerPoint includes observations like:
Of the B-to-B marketers that use these new media platforms, Brand Building is most frequently accomplished through blogs, second life, social networks, viral videos, wiki and their own websites. Demand Generation is accomplished through email, online, SEO, SEM, and video on demand– while companies use blogs, podcasts and webinars to generate Customer Loyalty.
Conclusions?
My conclusions of this research? If you are a B2B marketer and not using new media, time to get with the program.
Need new leads, to create more demand for your products or services? Put the power of these new media tools to work for yourself.
- Blog
- Podcasts
- Webinars
Want to build your brand and become more well known? Add these to your marketing plan:
- Blog
- Join Social Networks
- Viral Videos
- Set up a Wiki
- Re-Design and Update your Website
Time for me to Get off My Butt
Which explains why I decided it was time to dust off my Marketing Safari Seminar, update it and relaunch it.
What do you plan to do with this information?
Live Large!
Marketing Should Not Be A Gamble
The paradox with marketing is that everybody spends money marketing their business but with failure rates as high as 75-90% is anyone really succeeding?
This massive turnover and failure rate [read churn] in marketing, advertising, and promotional activities is a sad indictment of the state of marketing and your odds are better in Las Vegas.
Odds Are Better In Vegas
With a 75-90% failure rate your odds are better in Las Vegas:
- Horse Racing 41%
- Blackjack (as usually player) 45%
- Roulette 47%
- Blackjack (perfect strategy and card counting) 50%
- Slots: 68%
Turning Marketing On Its Head
Most of our marketing starts out upside-down from the beginning. Upside down because most marketing campaigns totally ignore the customer because marketers get fixated on creating “results”. You or someone else decides to do some marketing and promotion because, “We need more sales.”
Fallacy of Target Marketing
There is way to much crap that gets called marketing these days.
I have been thinking about this issue for awhile.
Finally, I got fed up and decided it was time for me to do something to help clear up the confusion.
What follows is my attempt to categorize all the numerous marketing strategies.
Categorizing Marketing Strategy
So I went online and discovered the following marketing strategies (there were more but stopped looking after the 21st one):
Mind Map: Marketing Safari Seminar
Here is a mind map and overview of the Marketing Safari Seminar.
I plan to discuss and share more detail as I have time to blog about it.
