Marketing: Making Your Customer's Life Easier
Your customers have specific needs that they are trying to fulfill
. As a marketer it is not your job to fulfill these needs, but rather to show and explain how your product or service will do that for them.
When a customer takes out his or her money to make a purchase, they want to know that they are spending their hard-earned money on something that is going to satisfy their wants and needs. They want the answer to the question, "What's in it for me?" As long as the answer to that question fulfills the specific need a prospect is looking for, you are well on your way to making the sale.
There are about a dozen or so really strong needs that consumers are looking to fulfill when they spend money. One of these is the need to make life easier and/or more fun. If you are an internet marketer, you are already fulfilling at least part of this need. Shopping on the Internet is a major convenience, and makes life easier for people.
In fact, nearly every technological advance in history was originally intended to make life easier and/or more enjoyable for us poor humans. Let's face it. We don't live in a paradise. Every person everywhere has their own personal suffering to different degrees.
On the far side of the marketing scale is a tactic called "scare-tactic marketing." This is the practice of scaring a consumer into buying your product. The health industry is inundated with companies that use scare tactics as their main marketing tool.
Many, including myself, consider most scare-tactic style marketing to be unethical. But there is a lot to learn from watching those who use the technique. Without going overboard, to the point that you are "scaring" your customers, you can often find people who suffer from something that they, personally, consider a major inconvenience.
For example, many years ago I was watching Christopher Reeve being interviewed on a talk show. He mentioned that he received a sympathetic letter from a woman stating that she understood his suffering. She understood because she herself suffered from the horrible disease of chronic acid indigestion.
Now, Mr. Reeve got a good laugh out of it. How could anybody possibly compare acid indigestion with full-body paralysis? But the point is, something that one person may consider to be a minor inconvenience may be a serious issue for someone else. Next time you see a TV ad for acid reflux or acid indigestion products, pay close attention to their marketing techniques.
These companies know and understand that people with acid indigestion hate it with a passion, and want to get rid of it forever. And even if the consumer suffering from acid indigestion doesn't feel that way, the drug companies try to convince them that acid indigestion is a serious plague that needs to be wiped out. How are their marketing techniques letting the customer know that their product will solve the acid indigestion problem?
First of all, they make it appear as if you can't live a normal life if you suffer from acid indigestion. Some people feel as if their life has been ruined by acid indigestion. In those cases, drug companies convey their sympathy and understanding. Convincing people that they are suffering is one way to get a consumer started on the path of buying your product, and ultimately fulfilling the need a person has to make life easier.
Now I'm not saying to go out and create suffering where suffering doesn't exist. But keep in mind that everybody suffers, and what one person considers suffering may not even be something worth note by another.
If you can relieve suffering (even if that suffering is something minor), or at least make people forget about it for awhile, then you will have fulfilled a very strong need.
And, if you convey understanding and sympathy, that is the beginning of building trust between yourself and your customers. Trust is an underrated, yet vitally important, part of internet marketing.
by: Stu Wiseman
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