Do you want to sell more but are frustrated that people aren’t responding to your overtures? You feel you have a great product or service, and can’t understand why people aren’t buying?
Have you ever watched an old movie where the Englishman abroad, trying to be understood, gets more and more frustrated and shouts louder and louder at the hapless local?
We laugh because we know it’s absurd. Obviously volume doesn’t equate to understanding. The local isn’t deaf or stupid. Just doesn’t speak your language.
A lot of marketing activity falls into exactly this trap.
You want to sell more, so you extoll the virtues of your product. You wax lyrical about what it will do for anyone who buys it. You send out more promotions. You use fancy gimmicks, lumpy mail (stuff that makes the envelope look/feel unusual in the hope it’ll be opened) and a host of other media.
But it all falls on deaf ears.
So why is this happening, and more importantly, what can you do to remedy it?
One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is having assumptions about why clients buy and equally importantly, not buy. And you know what they say about “assumptions”. “You make and ‘ass’ of ‘you’ and ‘me’”.
You may love your product, but what about your prospects? What do they really think and feel about you and what you’re promoting?
Your job as a marketer is to get to the truth. The truth about what your customers really want and why they buy from you.
And the best way of doing this is to ask them.
Typically, you want to learn the answers to these kinds of questions:
- What are your customers' needs, wants, desires, and intentions when it comes to your product or service? Are you solving the problem you think you’re solving? Are you providing something your customers actually want, at a price that demonstrates clear value for money?
- How do your customers feel about your company, brand, or product/service? How does that affect their intent to buy? Are there particular issues that stop people from buying? (Fear of making a mistake and being stuck with something, wasting time etc., can stop a sale in its tracks)
- Why do they feel the way they do (good, bad or indifferent), and what is the root cause of their sentiment?
- What are your customers saying about your company, brand, or product/service? And where are they saying it? (social media etc.)
- Are there differences among different types of customers? If so, what are they? (You’re looking for both demographics – where they are, age, income etc., as well as psychographics – how they think – what motivates them etc.)
- Who or what influences your customers' perceptions and feelings?
- What are your customers saying and feeling about your competitors? How well do your competitors meet their needs, wants, and desires?
So what’s the best way of getting this information?
Phone a mix of between 20 and 30 of your current and former clients, as well as prospects who haven’t bought.
Ask them the questions based on the examples above. Collate the information you glean and look for trends.
For example, there may be issues with price (value for money), deliverability, guarantee (what if I don’t like the product), minimum order quantities etc.
Once you have this market intelligence, you can then take steps to fix the issues and make sure your promotions hit the mark.
Now you may be thinking you’re too close to the issues, and you may be right.
So have us do the research for you. We’re not personally involved and bring a third party objectivity to the table. And in our experience, people open up to us as they know they won’t hurt our feelings.
This way you get a far more comprehensive report as to what’s really going on and we can give you a comprehensive strategy to market your products more effectively.
Interested? Call me on (02) 9499-7958 and we can get the ball rolling.
Rashid.
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