Selling the Invisible: Service Marketing

More than 80% of people work in “service” companies, but only 20% business school case studies focus on services. We are often taught to market products, but not services. Still, the majority of people primarily offer services or work as a service provider.

So, Today I am sharing with you the “7 Strategies to Market your Services”:

Marketing follows the Services: A better service makes everything better and thus marketing becomes easier, cheaper and more profitable.

Identify the Demand: Research what your prospect client is really looking for. Do they focus on the product or experience?

Actually, People love the experience more than the product.

And, McDonald’s burger business success proved that people look for experience more than the burger(product) and that is the reason it successfully defeated Burger King.

Make clients feel valuable: In most professional services (be it a lawyer, doctor, accountant, engineer, writer), you sell relationships not expertise. So, for most service businesses and experts, you need to get better at your relationships.

Overcome fear of not meeting expectations: Buying a service is a scary thing as the client is not going to find the result until it’s done. So, always make sure to show your prospect that they need this service in the first place and then win their trust.

Follow the Anchoring Effect: Set realistic expectations, then beat them. Tell your client that they’ll have the report by 2pm Tuesday. Then send it to them at 11am.?

Set Right Positioning: Deciding a niche might sound scary but it is the only one thing that will set your position in prospect’s mind and will decide your worth.

Set Right Pricing: You can follow three methods to decide the price.

a. The Resistance Principle says “Setting your price is like a screw – a little resistance is a good thing”. If only 5-10% of genuine customers are a little hesitant about the price, then your price is not too high.

b. Avoid the deadly middle as it is the death zone. For the people who want the cheapest, you’re too expensive. For the people willing to pay top dollar for the best, you’re not good enough.

c. A Pricing lesson from Picasso says charge for your experience and not for the hours. Thus, don’t charge for what you do, charge for knowing what to do and how to do it. For example: Some lawyers charge a thousand rupees an hour to read legal documents, but some get pennies. Thus, the value of these services is subjective, and?there are no hard and fast rules for pricing.