Jay Abraham strongly advocates that a business extend itself far beyond the normal advertising methods used by most firms. Too many companies use conventional ads on a hit-or-miss basis, which draw poorly. Bad results discourage them from continuing to market and promote themselves. This can kill any hope of success.
You MUST MARKET. And you must market more wisely than your competitors. You must make every dollar you spend as efficient and as productive as you can. You must learn and adhere to all of the elements of powerful marketing.
The success of your business depends on how well you seek out new marketing approaches and sales avenues.
The cornerstone of your marketing plan should be to educate your client. You first educate them on your product or service. Let’s say you sell home furnaces. All of the interesting details regarding the construction and function of your furnace should be included in your advertising and promotional material. Next, you should have a booklet or report on how to save on home energy costs that is generic and can be used in a variety of promotions. Finally, you could have a report on how to buy or what to look for in an energy-efficient house or an even broader book on home construction or home budgeting that only touches on home energy and heating.
In other words, you educate them on your product and your firm; you educate them on the field in general in a way that’s useful to them, and you broadly educate them on tangentially related subjects, which has the effect of endearing you to them.
One of the saddest marketing mistakes I see is the failure of businesses to educate their customers about the unique advantages offered them.If you’ve reviewed 100 different manufacturers of the products you sell, let your customers know. It’ll impress them that you’ve screened out products that don’t have the quality, endurance, warranty, manufacturing support, service guarantees, or dependability you know they want. Perhapsyour guarantee is three times longer, or covers five times more problems than your competitors’. Your customer won’t know that unless you tactfully point it out.
When you educate your customers, you’ll see your profits soar. Think about yourself: When you buy or consider buying any item or service -- for yourself, your home, your family, as a gift, or for your business -- you often don’t know as much as you would like about the item. If you have unanswered questions about a product, you’re less likely to shell out the money to buy it.
When a company or salesman takes the time and initiative to objectively educate you on all the products in the field in which you’re considering making a purchase, it gains your trust and favor.
Education is a powerful marketing technique. Educate your prospective buyer about everything including a few of the bad or less positive aspects of your product or service), and you’ll sell to almost twice as many people as you do now.
This once concept -- educating your customers -- will gain you an inordinate advantage over your competitors.
Take Your Customer by the Hand
Few businesses realize that they must lead the customer to action, in addition to developing a compelling marketing plan.
People need to be explicitly told how to act to obtain your product or service. Therefore -- and this is incredibly important -- every sales call, letter commercial or personal contact should make the case for your product. Give prospects a brief education, then take them by the hand, figuratively speaking, and tell them what specific action to take next.
If you’re selling an impulse item, or if the offer is for a limited time, tell your prospect to get in touch with you immediately. And don’t be abstract. If you deal by phone, tell them to pick up the phone and call a specific number.
Success!
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