Tweet

Are You Selling What Your Customers Want to Buy?

Guest post by: Lisa Manyon

Article Overview: How to make sure your customers know you have what they need.

Are You Selling What Your Customers Want to Buy?

Business owners often overlook key components to effectively selling products and services to customers. Rather than just telling customers what your business has to offer, you should consider letting them know how your product or service will help improve their lives. It's important not to assume customers will automatically correlate your product with a solution. When creating your marketing materials consider the customer first. Customers need to know how your products or services will help them and it's up to you to give them this information.

Ask questions, get answers, and get started.

Asking questions is the key to figuring out where you need to go with the content of your marketing materials. Before I begin to write any marketing and promotional copy I run through an exercise I call POWER POINTS. Power Points are vital to creating successful copy because

What you say is just as important as how you say it. Even more important, your words must speak directly to your customers in a way that makes them respond.

Think of a marketing or promotional piece you want to create for your product or service (or a client's product or service) and answer each question with your business goal in mind before you start writing.

POWER POINTS to ponder before starting any copywriting project.

1) Who are we talking to?

2) What is the main point?

3) What motivates your audience/customers about this business, product or service?

4) What makes this business, product, or service unique?

5) What do you do better than the competition?

6) What's your niche?

7) What do you hope to accomplish with this promotional marketing piece?

8) What do you want the finished product to look like (postcard, brochure, catalog, direct mail, letter, print ad, etc.)? How will you use it? Who will receive (see) it and how or where?

9) Do you have a positioning statement, slogan or tagline for your company promotional materials? If not, have you considered creating one?

This exercise will help you start thinking from a perspective that will get results. You'll examine

What you want the promotional copy to do Who you want to talk to How you need to say what you need to say to get results

Remember, think of the customer first. It might help to think from the consumer perspective yourself.

What do you expect as a customer? What makes you more likely to buy a product or service?

From here you have a solid starting point to create your message. Examining the POWER POINTS will help you create more effective marketing materials and you'll also need to take it a step further to explore your features and benefits.

Related Articles
  Selling Power 26
  Entrepreneurs - Check Your Changed Market In These Recessionary Times
  So What
  Top 10 Outcomes When Salespeople Screw Up Selling "Value Added"
  The easy way to close more sales
  The Art of Selling
  Discounting Prices: How Low is Too Low?
  If You Want More Clients...Do it on Purpose
  Why Is Selling The Greatest Job?
  Grow Quickly Inside Your MLM Company
  Basic Sales Techniques
  The Value 2 (Squared) Equation
  Selling Strategies for the Scared
  Having Conversations with Prospects
  The Power of Empathy
  Sales and Marketing: Know and Apply The Separate But Equal Ideology
  Team Effort
  You're not that interesting!
  EMPATHY SELLING
  The easy way to increase your sales

Article Tags: audience, br 2, br 3, brochure, business goal, business owners, business product, copywriting project, direct mail, exercise, finished product, goal in mind, mail letter, marketing materials, niche, posi, postcard, promotional marketing, strong power



Related Forum Posts
Cafe Expenses - Hi Michele I used to work in a place that had a cafe that broke even every month. This is due to the fact that we couldn't get enough people through buying food and drinks to make a profit and the expenses consisted of: - Staff wages - Not selling all food so it would go to waste - Rent for occupying the premises - Selling products that had a low turn over - Customers would never come back a 2nd time due to the location I would imagine a restaurant would be the same with the hardest part attracting people every night to make a profit while setting your prices at the right price to keep people coming back.
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
How to Do Great Marketing with (Amost) No Money - I've given this presentation to CEOs many times. Now i can share it with you. But I cannot because I do not yet have 20 posts. Jeff Ogden, President Find New Customers
Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? - When the bug bite you. A lot of successful entrepreneurs started in their teens or at school. Selling sweets to fellow students or lemonade to firends in the neighbourhood.
Re: This is Marketing Warfare! - Hey GT, I guess this was from a while back, and it'll test your memory a bit but could you possibly elaborate on Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give us some examples of good USPs?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

What I Really Want Is...

Igniting Your Unstoppable Business Destiny

Tips for the Novice Traveler

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.