You may be in a creative business, or any other business for that matter, selling goods or services to your customers online or offline, and you probably believe that those customers and clients are buying what you are selling. And in some instances this will be true. But in my experience as a marketing agent, most of the time people are not really interested in the absolute product or service they are buying, they are interested in the benefits that come with it.
So what, you may think, as long as they are buying, then why does it matter? But the truth is, it not only matters, it is one of the things that matter the most.
If you disregard or ignore or can’t be bothered looking into the true reasons your customers are buying your products or services, the reasons that are often obscured behind the obvious, then you may be making many decisions that are based on half truths, and in some cases, completely wrong assumptions. Especially when it comes to pricing.
Most of my clients were underpricing and undervaluing their products and services before I became involved. They believed that price was the primary reason that they were getting their customers and clients, but after we dug deeper, it became obvious that this assumption wasn’t true. This shift of what they thought their customers were buying (after careful analysis of the data) into focussing on selling them what they were actually buying, caused not only an increase in profit margins, but also an increase in overall sales, retention, and customer satisfaction.
When a customer or client buys your product or service, they are buying YOURS instead of everyone else’s. This is a very important point in the age of the internet when anyone can buy anything from anybody at the click of a mouse. And because they have almost unlimited choices, when they buy YOUR product or service they want to feel that this decision was the right choice for them. That THIS choice was the BEST choice.
In simple terms, your customers and clients are buying your product or service to make themselves feel-good. To feel-good about the choices that they make as people: logically, emotionally and psychologically.
You have to work toward seeing your business through the eyes of your customers and clients by finding out WHY they feel-good when they buy or use your products and services. That way your marketing and promotional campaigns will be focused on the perspectives of your customers and clients, both the ones you have, and the ones you want.
So before jumping into your next marketing and promotional campaign, do the research, try to understand what your audience is truly buying. You might be surprised to find out that what you thought you were selling, is not actually what they are buying.
If you need help with this; contact me.