You know that hundreds, if not thousands, of people want and need your products and services. You're spending good money on advertising and mailings and you have a great looking website up, but you're still not getting all the clients you want or could handle. Why aren't more people responding to your marketing?
The most likely reason is your small business marketing materials aren't answering the questions your prospects are asking about your goods and services.
Imagine you wanted a new car and walked into a dealer's showroom. You spot the sleek looking model you’re interested in and go over to take a look. It's at this moment that a salesman walks up to you and introduces himself.
You start asking him questions about what makes this car worth so much, what it's good for, what features are included, guarantees, etc. Then you ask him if you can take the car for a test drive. now imagine that the salesman responded to each question with a shrug and said, 'You'll just have to buy it to find out if it is what you want.'
If the salesperson couldn't or wouldn't answer your questions, you'd most likely walk out and head for a car dealer where they could give you detailed answers to all your questions.
You don't want your prospects to walk away and possibly turn to one of your competitors do you? Of course not. But if your marketing isn't answering your prospects' questions you're going to continue to see most prospects walk away from your marketing materials and look to make their purchase elsewhere.
My small business clients generally report that once they meet with a prospect, they can close 20 to 50% of sales.
The problem is getting prospects to contact you or selling services and products without a sales conversation at all, through the Internet or direct mail. Your marketing has to be as good as you are face-to-face. Is it?
Bob and Dennis from Kansas called with just this small business problem. Once they meet with a prospect and present their information, their closing rate is almost 50%. The problem was that despite getting ten thousand visitors to their web site in the last couple of months, only a handful of these had contacted them. You can't close more sales without qualified leads.
When you're face-to-face with a prospect, you know how to get a conversation going and to answer all the questions they have about your products and services. Prospects reading a sales letter or your web site or listening to an ad also need their questions answered. No answers, no sales.
Once I explained to Bob and Dennis how to focus their web site marketing and use it to answer their prospects'
questions, and they made the necessary changes to their site, they saw their leads and sales surge.
So what are the questions your small business prospects would ask if you were meeting with them? What do they want to know in order to be convinced you can help them?
What are the questions your marketing needs to answer?
What information should your marketing materials give prospects in order to make a sale?
Whether you're marketing a product or a service, your prospects want to know:
- Who is it for?
- What's the primary problem it solves?
- How will I be better off with it?
- Will it really do what you’re telling me it will?
- What specifically will it do to solve my problem or answer my concern?
- Is this information for real?
- Is it the newest or latest model?
- Who else has bought it? What did they think of it?
- Why should I trust you?
- Is yours the best company to get this item from?
- Is it a fair value?
- I really want it, but how can I justify spending the money?
- Do I really need it now?
- Why should I make this purchase today, or this week?
- How can I make sure I'm not making a mistake?
- Okay, I’m ready to get it, but tell me again why I should want it?
- If I buy it, how complicated will it be to use? What kind of help will I get?
- How long will I have to wait to get it?
- Yes, I made the purchase, tell me again why it was worth all the money I spent?
- I own it, now how can I get the most of out it?
Want ten times as many clients? Start by giving your prospects ten times as many reasons to contact you and buy from you and you'll see your sales soar.
If your small business marketing isn't generating all the clients you can handle, it's not giving prospects the information they need to make a decision to contact you or buy.
You can keep using the same small business marketing strategy, the same marketing materials and the same marketing copy and get the same results — or you could discover how to give your prospects the information they want and see your sales skyrocket.
2006 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved
The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Strategy eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Strategy eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com