Sell What They Want Not What You Have

In Australia, the big two supermarket chains are good at what they do. They are good at selling stuff with maximum margin.
They have also made an art form of selling what they have by making you want it. These mandarins are a great example.

If you went into a fruit store and saw small mandarins on display you may have thought, “They’re a bit small” or “Mandarins are always a bit hard to peel”.

But not these.

These ones you know are EASY PEEL. You also know that they are the perfect size for kids because they are IDEAL FOR LUNCH BOXES. So they are no longer small, they are Kid Sized.

They are also fun because they have Toy Story branding – I am still not sure how that relates to Mandarins but I KNOW how it relates to kids. You also don’t

get to buy just a couple because they only come in 1kg bags.

If you look hard on the back of the label you would discover they are Afourer Mandarins (personally I prefer Imperial) but that is not important.

What is important is that they have turned a problem seller into a sought after item purely by selling what the customer wants (easy peel, right sized, kid friendly fruit) and not what they have (really small, not very tasty mandarins that people don’t want).

So how can you do this Dear-Reader? How can you package your services or products into something your target market wants even more than they do now?

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Have You Got A Card?

I was at a friends birthday party on the weekend. It was a fantastic event and I was sitting with some people I had never met before.
Now as usual, we started talking about what we did. It’s a standard opener, “So what do you do?” You have probably used it yourself.
Well it didn’t take long until we were chatting away full steam and we coming up with ideas on how to increase her business. It only made sense after talking business to ask for her business card and give her one of mine.

Then I shuffled seats. Again the conversation started, “So what do you do?” And we were off and racing (in fact, he is into horses and runs a horse magazine). A few more ideas and then it was “So do you have a business card?”

While I am not saying you should turn every function into a business meeting, I am saying that you need to have your cards ready. If you are like me and are passionate about what you do and how you may be able to help others, why wouldn’t you give a business card. Much to wifey’s dismay, I have even swapped business cards at a funeral!

Now while you probably don’t need them as much now as you can put details in your phone, it is always great to have them handy. (I am often surprised at people who go to networking events without a stack of business cards. What the..?) I was taught years ago, that a business card in your wallet gets crushed. So I have a stash of them in the special pocket of each suit jacket, the glove box of the car, my compendium, my card holder and some reserve in my wallet. It pays to be ready if ever someone asks, “So what do you do?” or “Have you got a card?”

So Friends, have you got a card?

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How cool!

I just checked out this video from FormLabs about their 3D printers.

To me it is more than 3D printing. 
It is manufacturing on a small scale. 
It is unleashing creativity.
It is lifting ideas off the page
It is enabling the next level.

Think of the leap for musicians when they could create their own high quality CDs using their computers and back room. All of a sudden designers and artists can effortlessly create their pieces.

Image: www.Formlabs.com

Think of the personalised items you could create at Trade Shows and Expos to engage with your visitors.
Think of the modelling you could do to solve engineer issues.
Think of the cool bass guitar picks your could create!

What would you do with your very own 3D printer?

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I was asked recently “What is the most cost-effective way of marketing our business?”

The short answer is to go back to your existing clients and say, “Hi, you loved the xxxx you bought. Just letting you know we also have yyyy and as and existing client here is the bundle deal we will do for you.” The commonly spouted figure is that it is 5 times cheaper to sell to an existing client than it is to get a new one. Most of us will have heard that before and still not act on it. So in terms of sales, I would start with existing clients.

I am sensing that the question was focussed on getting NEW clients, so let me address that. There are so many ways to choose and so many others to get sidetracked with. I also love how you said “cost-effective” and not cheapest. There are too many people who look for “cheap” without measuring the results and cost effectiveness. Social media streams (free outlets) are clogged with people saying, “buy my stuff, buy my stuff, BUY MY STUUUUFFFF!” All they are doing is screaming desperation, annoying their fans and not getting the sales they want.

So to answer the questions, marketing is not about a “Way” but about a “Campaign” so you actually need to shift how you look at it.

Start with the very basics. Who is my target market? What do they do, where do they live, what do they eat, where do the shop, what do they drive, what do they wear, how big is their family? Get incredibly specific. Too many home based businesses think, “I can sell my stuff to EVERYONE!” No you can’t. Even if they need it, EVERYONE won’t buy it. So get specific. Who is your ideal target market client?

Now you know who they are you will know where they hang out the most and where they will be open to marketing most. You can then build a campaign around that.
The campaign is made up of different touch points or steps to take action. The goal of the campaign is to get additional sales. Everything you do in the campaign is focussed around how do you get the prospect to buy from you. It may not be a direct sale, it may be get them to take action into your sales funnel that will ultimately end in a sale. It is important to maintain the focus that the intent of your campaign is ultimately to increase sales.

Here is an example. Let’s say your business is Freddy’s Family Photos. You take family photos of younger families. Typically mum, dad and kids under the age of 10. So your target market is families, not singles, not seniors, not couples, not weddings but families. If the other work comes to you then you do it, but it is not the work you seek out. You like to do work in your local area, so you really are marketing to young families with kids under the age of 10 that live within 10km of your home based business.

As part of Freddy’s marketing campaign, they do the following:
1) Sponsor the local Little Athletics by taking action shot photos of the finals. Families can then get free copies of some of the shots by entering their details.
2) The email address sends the photos (with Freddy’s water mark on it) as well as subscribing the family to the newsletter.
3) A week later they receive a letter with a small poster on regular paper. The poster is an image in the local park with the image of parents and kids blanked out so it can be coloured in (it alsy has Freddy’s logo and contact details on the bottom) – There is an accompanying message saying “Hope you enjoyed the Little Aths photo. Here is an image for your kids to draw in your family. We would love to see the finished results on our Facebook Page”
4) 2 Weeks later send an email with a message saying “We love kids art but sometimes it doesn’t catch the situation like a photo does. Here are some recent photos we have done and what the families have said about working with us. (insert 2 testimonials and some photos). If you would like to know more about having some family photos done, simply hit replay and one of our team will be in touch.”
5) 2 weeks later send another email – As one of our Little Aths family, we would like to give you this special offer xxxxx. Simply hit reply and one of our team will be in touch to make an appointment

This is a simple example of a targeted marketing campaign. As well as the marketing campaign, Freddy also sends out a monthly newsletter with stories of families getting their photo’s take, Photography tips and testimonials. This newsletter is a constant reminder to the recipients of what is available without saying “Buy my stuff!” It also adds value in terms of some tips, stories of the families (including when photo shoots go bad) so there is some entertainment. Every now and again it may contain a special offer.

The campaign works on building trust with prospect by slowly introducing yourself and what you do. It builds awareness by providing desired images with branding on it. It also showcases the quality of Freddy’s work.
The cost? One day every couple of months taking photos at Little Aths. Some postage and printing for each prospect (no more than $5 per prospect) and some time managing the emails and database. Not a great deal in comparison to the value of a photo shoot.

By the way, there are other business where this approach WOULD NOT WORK!! It is centred around the target market. You need to appeal to them in a way that inspires them into action.

So your action is to define the following:

Who is my target market?
Where do they hang out and what do they like to do?
How can I get them on my database?
What 5 to 7 step process can I put in place to know me, like me and trust me?
What is the irresistible offer I can make to them?

Love to hear any thoughts?

Enjoy the day

Warwick

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