I sat across the table from someone for whom I have great respect one day. He was asking for my input about his brand. He wasn’t happy with his sales numbers and was looking for a little inspiration.
“So, what do you think?” he asked.
“Well, you’ve got a lot of great information here about your product. My question, though, is ‘How does it make life better for the consumer?’”
Again, he stated all the great features of his product. I could see that a big piece of his marketing puzzle was missing.
“Yes, it’s a great product,” I said. “But there are a lot of great products out on the market. How are you going to open market share by sounding just like the other guys? How are you going to connect on a deeper level? How does your product make your customer’s life better? What do they think??”
His reply stunned me.
“I don’t care what they think. I just need them to buy my product.”
I share this because this is the trap that so many business owners fall into. For them, it’s all about the product. They have a great one. Better than their competitors! How come they aren’t making more sales??
You'll want a way to connect so they choose you over a competitor. Will touting yet another product feature do the trick? Probably not.
If you don’t care what your ideal customer thinks, how they feel, or how they’re going to respond to your product, how are you ever going to sell it?
The emotional pull is the bridge between you and the client. An emotional connection will expand their minds beyond facts and specs to the realization that they need your product. This is what drives opportunity, buying behavior, and sales.
In order to be successful, you must think about serving the needs of your customers first. You must connect with the people who are going to use your product. If there’s a wall between you, there will be frustration and struggle when trying to market. Figuring out the psychology of your audience is critical to connecting that bridge between you and your customer.
I’ll give you a good example.
One of our clients created an online marketplace for children’s activities. They marketed themselves as being an Amazon-type store to help busy moms find activities for their kids.
It was a one-stop-shop for all the things kids like to learn, play, or do. Sounds fantastic, huh?
The concept was a winner. But the marketing was falling flat. Sales slumped. Engagement faded.
We helped the owner understand what was going on in the minds of the mothers and fathers out there who were his ideal audience.
We found that foremost on their minds was the worry about iPad addiction. They feared that too much screen time would lead to the horrible consequences they heard on the news every night.
We focused our marketing as a way to allay those fears, a solution to their biggest worry. We took their conversion rate from 25 in their first 6 months of marketing the old way to over 400 conversions in the next 6 months with emotional marketing.
Ask this of your own marketing: Are you focusing too much on your product or are you leveraging the psychological pull of your audience? Do you care about what they think??
If you do, you’ll open up more opportunities in new markets.
You’ll do your bottom line a favor by avoiding living in the fantasy where throngs of people line up to buy your fabulous product. Come from a place of service, from the satisfaction of being able to solve a problem or alleviate a worry, and you’ll be miles ahead of the competition.