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Marketing Tips November 2009
If Your Customers Buy, Do You Know Why?Green businesses around the country got a shock last week when a startling new study revealed the reasons that drive consumers to buy eco-friendly products. Surprisingly, most of the survey respondents who bought green products weren’t well-informed about environmental issues. They weren’t buying because the products would save natural resources or reduce carbon emissions. They were buying, in most cases, because green products would cut their utility bills. Predictable, in this economy? Perhaps. And I’m already seeing green businesses adjusting their marketing messages to fit the study results. But the story carries a larger marketing lesson, whether your business is green or not. And as obvious as it may seem, it’s an easy one to forget: Does your marketing message match your customers’ needs? In other words – are you selling what they’re looking to buy? If your product is absolutely the hottest thing on the market, with all the features a user could desire, it’s easy to want to sell those features. And it’s certainly tempting to use all the techie buzzwords. But are your prospects looking for features and searching for buzzwords – or are they looking for a tool to do a job? Sure, you’ll get some buyers who simply have to have the latest model of the latest gadget. But in most cases, your buyers are looking for a tool to do a job. The features of the tool – the “bells and whistles” - may influence their purchasing decision, but only if they make the job easier or improve the outcome. You need to sell not products or features, but solutions and benefits. You need to answer the unspoken question – How will this make my life better or easier? For example, how would you motivate the mother of a chemically sensitive child to buy a high-end water filtration vacuum with an integrated hot water extraction system and air purifier? She’d leap for it if you could demonstrate that the design guaranteed hospital-quality results, thus helping to solve her number one problem: how to protect her vulnerable child. On the other hand, If you tried to sell her on the technical features that made those results possible – without including their benefit to the buyer and her child– all the sales talk in the world wouldn’t make the least bit of difference. So the question is – what are your customers looking for, and do they know you’re selling it? The only way you can answer this is to know your customers. Talk to them. Survey them. Invite and answer their questions. The more you know about the benefits your customers want from your products, the better you can fine-tune your marketing messages to keep them coming back. Phila Hoopes
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