Are you lost in your Marketing maze?

I’d like to share with you some ideas and methods for you to increase the number of customers who buy from you and by so doing increase your turnover and your profits.

When we look at any form of direct marketing, whether that’s direct mail, web marketing, postcards, e-mail or even advertising, there is one big number that needs careful examination.

Let’s imagine for a moment …

That a business has undertaken a direct mail campaign and having tested the copy for the letter, perhaps a brochure, a lift letter and order form of some description, has decided to roll out a mailing of 20,000 pieces. 

Now no one knows for certain … 

What percentage response that mailing will produce. It might do far better than the original test, though if the testing was rigorously carried out, that’s probably unlikely and of course it may, because of other circumstances, do far worse.

In direct marketing there’s a factor known by many names but the essence of it being that on the day the direct marketing campaign lands a major news story hits all the media and almost everyone is so focused on the story that they don’t bother to read their mail or e-mail as the case may be. 

But let’s say the campaign pulls a 2% response.

Now the BIG number that needs to be examined and carefully considered is the 98% non-response. Yes, if 98 people out of every hundred mailed decide not to buy then we need to think about what impression of the business that mailed them was left with those potential customers – even though they didn’t buy.

 To give you a thought on this …

When I was first in the business of information products, audio, video, books and various other forms, I was mailing 20,000 pieces every month to promote my audio newsletter The Achievers Edge.

Now even though my results were very encouraging – averaging over 5% response - I still knew that I had to leave a positive impression with people who decided, at that time, not to subscribe and use the whole mailing as effectively as I could.

The way I did this was to include details about myself on the outer envelope of the mailing, including a photo and strapline. In other words, even the 95% of people who didn’t subscribe at least received some information about me that might influence their future buying decisions by leaving a positive impression with them

So when we consider our direct marketing actions the biggest group will invariably be the non-buyers.

Over my years in business I’ve had response rates as high as 42% but even then the bigger group was again the non-buyers.

Now customers have a variety of choices when faced with a problem they want to solve by buying a product or service. To start with, as with all direct marketing, the customer may not have the problem in the forefront of their minds and the marketing campaign starts by pointing out the problem and then offering a solution.

 Some of the potential customers’ choices are these:

They can buy from the supplier who is making the offer. They’re engaged by the sales process and decide to buy.

They can decide to buy from someone else – perhaps having the problem raised in their minds they investigate what other suppliers of the solution being offered are also in the market.

They can believe that a different solution is needed which can be obtained from either the first supplier or someone else

They can decide to delay buying or

They can decide NOT to buy at all!

So the questions we must consider are …

Why didn’t they buy and what can we do about it?

In a moment I’ll go through the idea of the ‘Marketing Maze’ and how effective that is, particularly in web marketing. For the moment let’s consider those two questions: ‘why didn’t they buy?’ and ‘what can we do about it?’

To start with – as with all marketing actions – it’s essential to know the numbers.

What actions took place and what responses were achieved?

Only by doing this on a consistent basis can we learn vital information from our various tests.

The first reason that people don’t buy is that the marketing was poorly targeted. 

They actually aren’t in the market to buy the product offered and in some cases may never be in the market. I’m sure you have received many e-mails offering products that you have absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

Now one of the other major reasons that potential customers don’t become customers - don’t buy - is because the marketing copy simply didn’t include a convincing ‘value proposition’. This is the same problem that many salespeople encounter.

Their conversion rates are not as high as they and their companies want and the reason can often be an insufficiently powerful or convincing value proposition.

The value proposition is a clear statement of exactly what benefit or benefits the customer will enjoy when they decide to buy the product or service being offered.

For example:

Let’s say a business is offering a product that will save costs for the customer.

The value proposition must show just how much will be saved and over what period that saving will be made. It may also be necessary to show the ROI – the return on the investment.

For example, if the cost of the product can be recovered over a one-year period through the saving it will make, then that needs to be clearly stated and then the additional savings made over the life of the product.

If the product or service is one that will help the commercial customer to make more profits, then again that needs laying out in such a simple way that any customer could understand the value proposition being made.

Now here’s a very important point: 

Wherever possible, and that’s probably in most cases, show the value proposition in graphical form.

The old expression: ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ whilst probably arguable by most wordsmiths, nevertheless has value when we’re putting forward the value proposition.

Use graphs, pie charts, and colored columns, as well as powerful words, to show the extra savings or additional profits that are possible by the purchase of the product or service being offered.

If you haven’t yet considered the idea of including a value proposition into your marketing, then perhaps now would be the time to do so.

Okay, let’s move on to consider what else we can do to find out why people don’t buy.

The key, the real key, is TESTING!

All marketing should include tests - even if that’s as simple as a change of headline on half the direct mail piece.

Without testing we miss the opportunity to find out what factors are triggering or preventing the buying decision.

Some of the items that are testable are: 

The headline, the complete offer, the price, the bonuses, the payment terms and the guarantee.

By continually testing we begin to find out what the factors are that persuade, ethically persuade, customers to buy.

Okay, so let’s move on and discuss The Marketing Maze.

This can be very effective indeed with web-based marketing. When I visit many sales websites I find that I’m only offered two choices: I can buy or not buy!

This is a mistake

Here’s how The Marketing Maze works…

You can imagine I’ve drawn a triangle on a piece of paper - an equilateral triangle rather like a pyramid.

The customer enters at the pointed end at the top of the pyramid and is offered two choices. One choice is ‘Yes’ they want to buy what’s offered. One choice is ‘No’ they’ve decided not to buy what’s offered. 

Now as we go down the pyramid shape other offers are made.

For the buyer, down the ‘yes’ side of the diagram, they may be offered an additional product or service that complements the first product or service – in effect an upsell.

For example …

Let’s say that the original product is a digital camera.

The upsell could be a high quality carrying case or larger memory card for the camera or even the offer of a second camera at a discounted price for two.

The buyer now has another choice of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If they say ‘yes’ then an additional sale is made. If they say ‘no’ the original sale is still made. I’m certain that if you’ve ever visited an online bookselling site you will have seen on the order page some words along the lines of: Other people who bought this book also bought... and there will be a list of books in the same genre.

So we’ve dealt with the buyer. They say ‘yes’ they want to buy and then are offered additional products or services and make a decision to buy or not buy those.

Now let’s go back to the top of the pyramid …

 The top of the Marketing Maze, and look at the non-buyer. What can we do for them?

Well to start with, we can offer a different version of the product, perhaps a less expensive model or version, perhaps a different solution to the same problem that prompted the possible purchase.

So again as we come down the pyramid the non-buyer is offered another yes/no choice. Do they want the less expensive product or not?

Let’s imagine they say ‘Yes’. Now again they may be offered an upsell on that product. Remember by this stage the person has changed from being a non-buyer of the main offer to being a buyer of the lower offer so they may well be responsive to an offer that gives them even more of what they want.

Let’s go back to the top of the pyramid – let’s imagine that the person who decided not to buy the main offer then also decided not to buy the second lower offer. What can we do now? We’ve had two ‘no’s’ and are in danger of losing the customer prospect ?? altogether.

What else can we offer when they say ‘no’ to the second lower offer?

 Well perhaps we can offer a free report on cameras or whatever is the product being sold; perhaps we can offer a free subscription to our newsletter or e-zine; perhaps we can offer a tips sheet on how to take better pictures; perhaps membership of our discussion forum or anything else you can come up with that will at least capture the potential customer’s details so that contact is NOT totally lost, in the hope that at some future stage, having been impressed by your information and products, they may just become a buyer.

So, I’d urge you to take a serious look at just how The Marketing Maze can work well in your business and whether sufficient actions are taking place to upsell buyers, to downsell non-buyers and to capture the details of any visitor so that you can create the opportunity for them to eventually become a buyer of whatever you have to supply.

So there we have it, a number of ways, ideas and methods to help you increase your turnover, increase your profits and by so doing increase whatever benefits you get from those results.

Until next time

Every Success

Peter

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