Customer psychology continued –

The sooner and more effectively you answer these two questions, the
sooner your listener will “hear” anything else you have to say.  Of
course there is a reason for this.  When your customer has an
overriding question in his or her mind, that person is
subconsciously “filtering” everything you have to say looking to
see if you have answered that question.  Your customer is only
halfway listening to your “pitch” during this searching process.

“What’s in it for me?” is the number one question in every buyer’s
mind from the beginning of the conversation–spoken or written.
This is frequently referred to as WII-FM.

Your customer wants to know how your product or service will
benefit him or her.  Notice I said, “benefit.”  Benefits are what
you need to stress NOT features.  If you only stress features, you
are risking that your customer will translate those into personal
benefits properly.  Instead, you want to control this process, so
you list the benefits and personalize them in the customer’s mind.

By personalizing I am referring to using such techniques as
feelings or imagination.  Say, “Just imagine how you will feel in
your new dress,” or “Imagine the looks of envy you will get driving
this shiny new car.”  But this is copywriting, and more on that
later.

You want to remove any doubt in your customers’ minds that they
will benefit and greatly with your product or service.  You must
position your product or service in such a manner that the great
benefit to your customer will be obvious to him or her.

The number two question in every buyer’s mind from the outset is,
“What’s it going to cost me?”

You will notice that most marketers will not come right out and
state the price.  Instead, they will show the value and benefits of
the product or service.  However, they often at least say something
to the effect, “This doesn’t cost nearly as much as you may think.”
That will bypass some of the customer’s filtering for the moment
allowing more of the presentation to be “received.”

When reading a web page, you may be one of the many people who will
go right to the bottom of the page looking for the price.  You have
likely noticed that you then have to scroll back up the page some
to actually find the price.  Sometimes marketers are so
short-sighted as to make the price really hard to find or even
force you to click on the “buy button” to see the page with the
price on it.

I say “short-sighted” because this borders on too much “push”
marketing and too little “pull” marketing.  Push marketing is where
the person is pushing the product onto the customer, selling too
hard.  Customers are rapidly becoming more savvy and progressively
less tolerant of this type of approach.  With many more options in
the marketplace than ever before, they are recognizing that they do
not have to put up with the more high pressure sales tactics.

Pull marketing is the technique of giving the customer all the
information he or she needs to make a decision without pressuring
him or her into the buying decision.  If your customer feels he or
she has decided on his or her own to make the purchase, your
credibility is much better and you will have fewer complaints and
returns.

But the real message you want to deliver to your customers is that
trying out your product or service will cost them nothing, if it
doesn’t work out for them.  This is risk reversal.  In other words,
you are assuming all the risk of trying out your product or
service.  The most common form of risk reversal is the “money back
guarantee.”  You offer the customer’s money back if he or she
doesn’t find your product useful.

That truly does facilitate the process.  I’m sure you will agree
that you have felt much more comfortable making a purchase, if you
knew in advance that you wouldn’t be stuck with it if it didn’t work.

Careful pursuit of these principles is part of your integrity as a
business person.  These become much more important to you when you
realize the benefit of the Lifetime Value of a customer.  The LV of
a customer is the amount that person will spend with you over the
lifetime of his or her business relationship with you.  The LV of a
customer should be much more important to you than an individual
sale.  It is the relationship with that person that will be worth
far more to you over the years.

Yes, there will be people who will cheat you, but most are honest
and truly want solutions to their problems at reasonable prices.
Therefore, being generous and always standing behind what do is the
most lucrative policy for any legitimate businessperson to adopt.

In the pursuit of more and better business for you!

Let me help you grow your business today!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.