Do I have your attention?

Getting someone’s attention is very difficult.

As a small business owner, if you’re using traditional media it can cost much more and takes a lot longer to work, and many small business owners simply can’t afford to do it.

Getting a potential customers attention, no matter what types of marketing communication tools you’re using, involves a number of steps before you start designing anything.

First you need to understand your customer.

What is important to them? How do they determine value for the dollar? What is their buying process? How do they like to be communicated with?

Understand how your customers compare you to your competition. Are you dictating how your company is perceived or are you leaving it up to your customers or worse; your competitors. You need to tell your customers on a regular basis what you’re all about and what you can do for them. You don’t want to leave this to chance.

Next you need to create an environment that encourages customers to buy from you. This should include your physical location, on the phone and online. Remove all barriers to buying. The easier you make it to deal with you and the greater the value you provide (quality, selection, service, support etc) the more people will want to talk about you and recommend you.

Ultimately customers buy when they’re ready to buy. They need to have a genuine need or want for what you sell as well as a sense of urgency.

Your marketing message must speak directly to your customer and let them know that you understand what they need and that you can provide it.

During my next post we’ll discuss how to craft a message that gets attention.

Follow these three steps to win more business

When sending out a marketing message to an audience of potential customers, there are three things you should always do.

1. Talk about the reader/listener/watcher in your message, not about you
2. Tell them as succinctly as possible why they should care about your message – what’s in it for them
3. Give them a reason to act now

As I wrote in my last post, being relevant is the most important thing you can do. You need to provide the right message to the right person at the right time to generate a customer. No easy feat. But you can become better at it.

In their book “waiting for your cat to bark“, Bryan and Jeffery Eisenberg state that in order to persuade a person to become a customer you need to align the customer’s goals with your business goals. In order to accomplish this they suggest you answer three questions:

1. Who are you trying to persuade to take action?
2. What is the action you want them to take?
3. What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?

Most small businesses spend too much time talking about themselves. To be relevant, you need to show the prospect that you have something they need now. Focus on their issues and their pain and how you can help them.

In my next post we’ll discuss how to get someone’s attention.