Today, I want to share a highly effective marketing idea with you. It recently helped a client of mine achieve remarkable results. And it can do the same for you. I explain how it works in a moment.
I need to start by asking you a question: How well do you understand the needs and wants of your marketplace?
Many small business owners assume they know what matters most to their clients and prospective clients. However, they don’t. That’s the problem with assumptions. They’re often wrong.
If a business owner then markets their service based on incorrect assumptions, their marketing becomes ineffective. They will focus on the wrong things and overlook what really matters. And that’s a costly mistake, which I want you to avoid.
Thankfully, the opposite is also true:
- The more you know about what matters to your client, the better you can serve them.
- The better you serve them, the more they will value your service.
- The more they value your service, the less likely they are to switch to another provider.
- The more they value your service, the more they will pay for it.
- The more they value your service, the more likely they are to tell their friends.
Learning what your marketplace wants
It has never been easier to learn what your clients and prospective clients really want. Until recently, you had just 2 options. Neither were that effective.
- You could ask your existing clients about what matters to them.
- You could survey people.
In both instances, the value of the feedback is relatively low. Existing clients are just a tiny, often unrepresentative subset of the marketplace. Surveys are often a waste of time and money, because people seldom answer fully and honestly. This is why Steve Jobs famously shunned them.
Today, it’s easy. Here’s why!
You no longer need to poll your clients or rely on surveys. Why? Because your marketplace now share their thoughts, openly and without fear, online. They say what they really think. Not what they want a service provider to believe . The difference is huge.
Business forums that serve your marketplace provide the most valuable online insights. You can see the questions your prospective clients are asking. You can see what matters to them. You can see the most common and most pressing problems.
And in doing so, you get an invaluable insight into what your prospective clients [and clients] want, need and value the most. It helps you craft the ideal marketing message. It helps you develop the most irresistible service. This information is marketing dynamite!
Here’s how this worked for a client of mine.
Listening and making his marketing more effective
Gerry owns an IT maintenance company, serving small businesses. He came to me for some advice. He wanted to know how to attract more high quality enquiries. I gave him a few workable strategies and explained what to do. One strategy, was for him to find small business forums. He was then to search these forums for the questions small business owners had, regarding their IT. He very quickly identified several key issues, which mattered to his marketplace, but he hadn’t been addressing in his marketing.
After speaking with me, he decided to focus heavily on three key challenges that he knew his marketplace wanted answers to. We then improved his marketing message, making these three issues the main focus. His marketing was now saying what his marketplace needed to hear. He quickly started to attract more enquiries. This, because he spent a little time listening to what his marketplace wanted, then improved his message, so he became directly relevant to them.
And you can do the same.
You can listen to what your marketplace wants. You can become irresistible; either by adjusting the service you provide, improving the focus of your marketing message… or both.
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!