You have an innovative product, fantastic service
and an award winning business.
The crowds should be all over you, clamouring to
buy. Yet you are not attracting enough business to even cover your costs.
Why?
A lot of businesses think a good product alone is
all that is needed. How many times have you heard, 'Build it and they will
come'? Well, this is a line from popular entertainment, not the sage
business advice that it is thought to be.
What you have to do is 'sell your business'.
If your potential customers do not know who you are, what you do or where they
can find you, how do you expect them to buy from you.
In short if you are not doing anything to advertise
your business, how do you expect to be in business? Passing trade, word of
mouth etc., are all largely redundant in this day and age. For passing trade,
you have to place yourself where someone is likely to pass. You have to have an
enticing display to attract the potential customer who is outside to come inside.
These days this is your Webverts and SEO. The videos and images on your website
have become your shop front and store.
Word of mouth and recommendations do not take place
over the garden fence any more. They happen in social media. If you do not have
an online presence and do something to justify this, how can your satisfied
customers refer their social circle to you?
The art of advertising has not changed, only the
media we use and the pace at which we work has. It is still all
about attracting customers to buy from you and not from someone
else. To do that we have to give them the reasons they need to make that
choice.
We have to change,
an interest into a like ,
a like into a desire ,
the desire into a want
and the want into a need.
an interest into a like ,
a like into a desire ,
the desire into a want
and the want into a need.
An example
At one time hand made axes
were the low end of the market. The logging industry needed high volumes
of a consistent quality that the small hand forges could not produce, so they
moved to axes made industrially.
Today that situation has
changed there is no real need for axes anymore. The logging industry has been
mechanised and loggers work from the comfort of an air-conditioned cab.
Yet today, axes are selling at
premium prices! Not just any axe but hand made axes from the small forges that
a few decades ago were forced to find other product lines because they could not compete.
Industrially produced axes
are now retailing for around $20 -$60 hand made axes $200 to $600 each!
So what changed?
Making logging and axe
skills into a sport generated the interest, rebranding small axes and hatchets
as camping and outdoor survival tools took care of the rest.
This is called associative or
aspirational advertising. In this case the foundries associated their
axes with a life style to which people could aspire. Even if you could not
give it all up and go live in the high woods. That axe becomes a promise to
yourself, that one day, even if only for a few weeks, you could live your dream
of a simpler life.
Tricky? No, just an understanding of human nature and how purchasing
decisions are made. That is what advertising is, letting people know what you
have for sale. Then giving them the reasons why they should buy from you rather
than from another.
