You've gotta talk pain and pain relief when marketing to your ideal prospects. Take advantage of a sarcastic-sounding question that's actually a powerful marketing tool.
I suspect all of us have heard—and
used—the phrase “So what?” many times. Delivered in a certain tone of
voice (you know the one), it’s a snarky question guaranteed to fuel
conflict. Asked another way, however, it’s a powerful marketing tool.
When asked in a tone of genuine curiosity, “So what?” elevates our
marketing from the realm of “I’m blah with blah blah and we offer blah
blah blah” to the realm of “I know that you experience this type of
pain, and here’s how I relieve that pain for you”
Have a talk with yourself
In my opinion, it’s best to start by asking yourself this pointed question.
Whenever you identify a feature of your product and service, haul out the “So what?” guns. This will force you to think from your client’s perspective and identify clearly why anyone cares about that particular feature; in other words, it will start you digging down to the benefit your product/service provides.
Once you’ve come up with an answer, ask the question again. Keep asking it until you’ve really drilled down to the essential value provided. Then move on to the next feature of the next service/product.
Going through this process is not necessarily fast or easy. However, with determination, focus on the powerful marketing messages you’re creating, and massive amounts of chocolate, you’ll become much more clear on exactly how you provide value to your clients.
The big clue
How do you know when you’ve truly answered the question in a way that will improve your marketing results? When your answer describes the emotional outcomes you create for your client : a feeling of financial security, or confidence, or relief, or personal power, or satisfaction...you get the idea.
The next step
That’s step one. Step two is checking in with your clients to determine if what you perceive as high value is the same as what they perceive. Many times you’ll be beautifully aligned with how your clients are feeling and thinking. However, to simply assume you know what they most value is just begging to waste time, money, and effort on marketing messages that fail to address what’s important from the client’s perspective—which, after all, is the one that really matters.
How do you confirm or disprove your hypothesis about your product’s/service’s crucial value? Ask. Spend some time creating a survey that will genuinely take five minutes or less to complete, then send it to your customers. You can do this at no charge by using a service like SurveyMonkey, you can ask for help with a posting on your company Facebook page, or you can tweet it.
As with any type of communication, your request for input has to answer the client’s question, “What’s in it for me to take time to do this?” Here’s where the ethical bribe comes in.
You can arrange to put the name of everyone who responds in a drawing for a $100 gift card to the store of their choice; you can limit the drawing to the first X people to respond; you can send all respondents a $5 card to a local coffee shop. This tangible bribe is, naturally, in addition to pointing out that getting guidance directly from your customers is going to allow you to improve your level of service and the amount of value they receive from you.
Once you’ve gathered your data, it’s crucial to acknowledge your clients’ input and to promptly start addressing any concerns that you uncovered. Asking how you can improve and then failing to act on the information is a sure-fire way to create bad feelings—and decreased revenues.
Fer instance...
I’m launching a business called Stepping Into Big. Here’s one way to describe it:
Stepping Into Big, LLC, offers a highly collaborative, 90-day, business-building program comprising three modules. Delivery focuses on where the client is and where she wants to end up. Derailers addresses those mental and operational obstacles which have gotten her off track in the past. And Delivery looks at the challenges she faces in actually implementing her ideas. Clients finish the 90 days with a high-level Master Action Plan for moving forward as well as more detailed individual action plans in five key success areas.
Yawn.
Okay, maybe not a huge yawn, but, really: Why would I just list attributes of the service instead of addressing the prospect’s pain and the type of pain-relief outcomes she can expect from working with me? Would the following description perhaps resonate more with my ideal client?
Are you so paralyzed by all the things you could do to grow your business that you struggle to decide what you will do? Do you cringe when you think of all the great ideas that never get implemented? Then maybe it’s time to get some help so you can start creating a bigger business as well as a bigger life. In just 90 days, the Stepping Into Big co-creative process will get you out of overwhelm and into control. You’ll feel confident, clear, and calm after we’ve developed a strategic Master Action Plan as well as detailed, tactical individual action plans in five key success areas to get you out of neutral and moving briskly down your road to success. Stepping Into Big provides a guiding hand for your journey to genius.
Bottom Line
We owe it to ourselves, our businesses, and especially our customers to clearly and compellingly share our value. If your product or service is the answer to a prospect’s prayers, I think you actually have an obligation to that prospect to make it clear how you move them from pain to peace. Asking the tough question “So what?” will make it easier to connect with the people whom you can best serve—and isn’t that the point of it all?
Have a talk with yourself
In my opinion, it’s best to start by asking yourself this pointed question.
Whenever you identify a feature of your product and service, haul out the “So what?” guns. This will force you to think from your client’s perspective and identify clearly why anyone cares about that particular feature; in other words, it will start you digging down to the benefit your product/service provides.
Once you’ve come up with an answer, ask the question again. Keep asking it until you’ve really drilled down to the essential value provided. Then move on to the next feature of the next service/product.
Going through this process is not necessarily fast or easy. However, with determination, focus on the powerful marketing messages you’re creating, and massive amounts of chocolate, you’ll become much more clear on exactly how you provide value to your clients.
The big clue
How do you know when you’ve truly answered the question in a way that will improve your marketing results? When your answer describes the emotional outcomes you create for your client : a feeling of financial security, or confidence, or relief, or personal power, or satisfaction...you get the idea.
The next step
That’s step one. Step two is checking in with your clients to determine if what you perceive as high value is the same as what they perceive. Many times you’ll be beautifully aligned with how your clients are feeling and thinking. However, to simply assume you know what they most value is just begging to waste time, money, and effort on marketing messages that fail to address what’s important from the client’s perspective—which, after all, is the one that really matters.
How do you confirm or disprove your hypothesis about your product’s/service’s crucial value? Ask. Spend some time creating a survey that will genuinely take five minutes or less to complete, then send it to your customers. You can do this at no charge by using a service like SurveyMonkey, you can ask for help with a posting on your company Facebook page, or you can tweet it.
As with any type of communication, your request for input has to answer the client’s question, “What’s in it for me to take time to do this?” Here’s where the ethical bribe comes in.
You can arrange to put the name of everyone who responds in a drawing for a $100 gift card to the store of their choice; you can limit the drawing to the first X people to respond; you can send all respondents a $5 card to a local coffee shop. This tangible bribe is, naturally, in addition to pointing out that getting guidance directly from your customers is going to allow you to improve your level of service and the amount of value they receive from you.
Once you’ve gathered your data, it’s crucial to acknowledge your clients’ input and to promptly start addressing any concerns that you uncovered. Asking how you can improve and then failing to act on the information is a sure-fire way to create bad feelings—and decreased revenues.
Fer instance...
I’m launching a business called Stepping Into Big. Here’s one way to describe it:
Stepping Into Big, LLC, offers a highly collaborative, 90-day, business-building program comprising three modules. Delivery focuses on where the client is and where she wants to end up. Derailers addresses those mental and operational obstacles which have gotten her off track in the past. And Delivery looks at the challenges she faces in actually implementing her ideas. Clients finish the 90 days with a high-level Master Action Plan for moving forward as well as more detailed individual action plans in five key success areas.
Yawn.
Okay, maybe not a huge yawn, but, really: Why would I just list attributes of the service instead of addressing the prospect’s pain and the type of pain-relief outcomes she can expect from working with me? Would the following description perhaps resonate more with my ideal client?
Are you so paralyzed by all the things you could do to grow your business that you struggle to decide what you will do? Do you cringe when you think of all the great ideas that never get implemented? Then maybe it’s time to get some help so you can start creating a bigger business as well as a bigger life. In just 90 days, the Stepping Into Big co-creative process will get you out of overwhelm and into control. You’ll feel confident, clear, and calm after we’ve developed a strategic Master Action Plan as well as detailed, tactical individual action plans in five key success areas to get you out of neutral and moving briskly down your road to success. Stepping Into Big provides a guiding hand for your journey to genius.
Bottom Line
We owe it to ourselves, our businesses, and especially our customers to clearly and compellingly share our value. If your product or service is the answer to a prospect’s prayers, I think you actually have an obligation to that prospect to make it clear how you move them from pain to peace. Asking the tough question “So what?” will make it easier to connect with the people whom you can best serve—and isn’t that the point of it all?
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