In our quest for success we can sometimes be stuck in the Pavlovian Business Rut. What I mean by that is that we put up a blog, or start a business and hope that by ringing our business bell by showcasing and ’selling’ our products, prospects will come salivating to our web site. In this day and age it is just not the case.
The modern day consumer is a different beast than that of even just a few years ago. I remember my first web site which went up in 1997. I had it built, put it up on a high traffic industry portal, put a sales pitch on there and saw volumes of leads coming from it. This was because the web was new, anything that gave good information did OK and pretty much any type of promotion got attention.
These days however, the average consumer is far more savvy, far more informed and, along with the plethora of information available on pretty much any subject, far more time poor. At least when it comes to surfing for information and being offered products.
Ringing your proverbial bell will just not cut it anymore, proactive marketing is the key, and data capture (email capture) is the Holy Grail. The modern consumer wants, and is now used to, much more in the sales process. Here are a few ideas:
1. Hard Sell Is Dead.
Yes I know you can click on a multitude of sales pages that really do try to hard sell customers, some of these are no doubt successful, the majority, I would wager, are not. If you dissect many of the successful ‘hard sell’ pages you will see that they are more subtle, using mental pressure points in many forms. If you are looking to make a long term career from selling online then re-evaluate any hard selling that you are doing on your site.
2. Customers Expect To Try Before They Buy
It is not so long ago that we were all a slave to buying products, especially information products. They were shrouded in mystery before we bought them… I am not sure that anyone buys this way anymore. These days, some of the best information that you can buy is pre-launched with massive free information that almost creates an obligation on you to buy.
Take Yaro Starak’s ‘Blog Profits Blue Print’. It is excellent and free. You know that if he produces quality information like that for free then his paid material has GOT to be good. That, my friend, is a classic mental pressure point and a phrase was coined known as ‘moving the free line’. Tyrone Shum did some awesome videos before his Mass Outsourcing course which almost told you how to do everything, up front and for free. Our eBook ‘Becoming An Entrepreneur – Boot Camp‘ is free information up front so you can see (hopefully) the quality of our work. Take a look at your ‘try before you buy’ policy on your site.
3. Customers Will Know If Your Product is Sub-Standard – Return Policy
Anything you do will not always impress everybody. Some will rave about your product as total genius and some will call you the Anti-Christ. This second option is, obviously, not great for your online brand, so having a rigid money-back-if-not-satisfied policy is crucial. People will not curse you out on the web if you return their money, no questions asked.
4. Know Your Client
In financial services this is such a buzz phrase it has got annoying. Basically every bank or broker etc, has to ‘know their client’ by asking for, and investigating if necessary, the nature of your financial situation and experience. In a way this formal requirement helped banks and brokers to find more information to be able to sell to clients, as well as satisfy the regulations. If you have an email list of 500 people whom you know their needs and wants, you have a ‘targeted list’ and one which is better than 2000 random people who have signed up for your newsletter.
Check out www.andrewanddaryl.com, they are great proponents of testing your marketing and knowing your customers.
5. Fill a Need or a Want
If your product is not defined by either of these you will struggle online or offline…period. Do I walk the walk? Well our site has one goal, to make people more wealthy by knowledge. Whether this knowledge is learning how to be an entrepreneur, learning how to sell better or learning how to develop mentally, the blog is all about helping people make more more and live more fulfilling lives. That is something that many people want and many people need.
Take a look and define your site or product, is it a need or a want? The two things are marketed very differently.
6. Develop Authority With Your Customer
Developing authority is a tough one, but what has been a big learning curve for me has been following some of the top ‘gurus’ and how they do it. I keep mentioning Yaro Starak but to me he has developed such authority in his space, he cannot fail but be successful and he has done this by giving away excellent information through his blog posts, his podcasts and his free ebooks.
7. Customers Have An Unlimited Budget For Things That Make Them Money
Think about this for a moment, if I made you $2 for every dollar you spent on my products how many of them would you buy? It seems like a silly question but this logic is missing in some people’s view of their own business. If you can quantify the value you are bringing to your customers and this is over and above the cost of your product you can have a thriving business.
This is not necessarily just for ‘make money online’ products. If you have a weight loss program what value would your customers put on getting fit and feeling healthy? When putting together a program or an eBook this is something that should be on the top of your list… i,e ‘what is the actual value to my customer’.
These few points are by no means the be all and end all, just the first ones that sprung to mind. What I hope they have done is illustrate the changing nature of the modern consumer, especially those online. Let me know your thoughts in the comments
Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear
