Stop asking new customers to marry you!

Picture this. You walk into a bar. You spot a good-looking man or woman across the room. So you walk up to them and ask them to marry you.

Sound like something you’d do? Probably not.

Yet small businesses do this all the time with their customers.

You meet a new prospect. You do a quick bit of chit-chat. Then you ask them for money.

Stop, Casanova. You’re coming on too strong, too soon.

There’s a better way.

Earn the right to ask for their hand in marriage

So, what’s the alternative?

Before answering that question, let’s go back to the romance analogy.

If someone catches your eye, you don’t ask them to marry you; you ask them out. 

You then spend time getting to know them, getting to understand them. You also share information about yourself.

Bit by bit, trust builds. You progress from casual dating to a serious relationship.

Then, when the time is right, you propose marriage.

Now, your proposal seems like the most natural thing in the world, rather than a creepy come-on.

Woo them, woo them again and then woo them some more

Small businesses need to take a similar approach.

Instead of moving immediately to the sales close (or marriage proposal), you need to do some marketing (or wooing) to warm up your potential customers.

There are several types of marketing you could do, but one obvious option is content marketing.

Good content marketing involves regularly publishing content that your target market considers relevant, interesting and educational. That might include some combination of:

• Blogs
• Social media posts
• YouTube videos
• Email newsletters
• Podcasts
• Direct mail

Every time a potential customer consumes relevant, interesting and educational content from your small business, trust builds.

Bit by bit, the customer’s perception of your small business changes. 

Now, you’re no longer just another shonky operator out to make a quick buck. Instead, you’re a trusted expert – the kind they’d like to bring home to mumma.

Newsflash: your rivals are courting your customers

If your small business isn’t doing content marketing, it needs to start – immediately.

There are two reasons.

First, you’ll find it much easier to make sales if those potential new customers already feel like they know you and trust you.

Second, your rivals are doing content marketing. Yes, really. They’re out there building relationships with customers who might one day walk through your door – except, now, they won’t, because they’ll go to your rivals instead.

There are two ways you can do content marketing:

• Give the task to one of your employees
• Outsource the task to a small business marketing agency like Hunter & Scribe

Or you could just skip the wooing altogether and keep asking strangers to marry you.

Previous posts:

• Repeat after me: repetition is one of the keys to succeeding in marketing
• Being different is the safe option, not the risky option
• Why you need to turn your small business into a media company
• The small business that helps the most people wins

Hunter & Scribe specialises in content marketing for small businesses. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.