5 Ways to Educate Your Prospects for More Sales

Written by Roger C. Parker


5 Ways to Educate Your Prospects for More Sales

It’s impossible to sell a product or service without demand – no matter how lowrepparttar price or how bigrepparttar 120429 discount.

Education-Based Marketing creates demand by showingrepparttar 120430 prospects why they need your products and services, how to make intelligent buying decisions, and how to best use it after they buy.

Education-Based Marketing creates a ‘halo’ surrounding everything you sell.

When you promote an individual product or service, only that particular product or service benefits. But empowering customers and prospects benefits every product and service you sell.

Information pre-sells and differentiates. It builds customer confidence and positions you as credible, knowledgeable and trusted. Information sets you apart. You become a unique, trusted advisor.

Education-Based Marketing answers questions that must be answered before prospects will buy:

1.Who benefits fromrepparttar 120431 product or service?

2.What benefits doesrepparttar 120432 product or service provide?

3.When isrepparttar 120433 product or service needed?

4.Where isrepparttar 120434 product or service used?

5.How do you choose and use it?

Conventional advertising is hard to create because it’s judged by its creativity – how effectively it attracts attention, how cleverly it delivers its message and how memorable it is.

Education-Based Marketing, however, is easy to create becauserepparttar 120435 goal is to inform, rather than interrupt, manipulate or show-off. All you have to do is answerrepparttar 120436 five questions listed above.

Education-Based Marketing saves you money because technology has caught up with technique. You can do most ofrepparttar 120437 production yourself using desktop-publishing software, saving on expensive outside production costs.

5 Ways to Mine Gold From Your Testimonials

Written by Roger C. Parker


5 Ways to Mine Gold from Your Testimonials

One often-overlooked asset of your business isrepparttar testimonials you receive from happy, satisfied customers. Most businesses receive favorable customer comments and testimonials, but few translate these powerful marketing weapons into additional sales.

Testimonials work because customer comments are more credible than your words. When you say something about your business, your words are viewed as claims. But when your customer says them, their words are viewed as truth.

When a customer says something nice about you, your business, or one of your employees, how you respond is critical. Customer testimonials come in many forms, including conversations, emails and letters. Few testimonials are ready-to-use, however. Most can benefit from a little effort before you can put them to work.

Although you may receive testimonial letters that include permission to userepparttar 120428 customer’s words and name, in most cases you’re best off contactingrepparttar 120429 customer, verifyingrepparttar 120430 quote and asking permission to use their words and their name.

This is especially true if you are going to quote from a conversation or an email. Customers will appreciate your integrity. More important, verifying gives you a chance to clean uprepparttar 120431 customer’s grammar and also improve uponrepparttar 120432 customer’s original quote. For example, when verifying (or rewording) their comments, you might also ask: “Were there other aspects of buying from us that you might care to comment on?”

Simply showing an interest inrepparttar 120433 customer’s words is often enough to openrepparttar 120434 testimonial floodgates.

Here are five ways to getrepparttar 120435 most from your testimonials:

1.3-ring binders. Letters and emails tend to get lost. One ofrepparttar 120436 best ways to prevent this is to immediately placerepparttar 120437 original in transparent sleeves stores in a 3-ring binder. 2.Bulletin board. Hang copies on a bulletin board – or better – frame and display them behind glass in a prominent location in your place of business. Use a colored background to highlightrepparttar 120438 most recent letter you’ve received. 3.Computer file. Save excerpts from customer letters in a special computer file. Enter justrepparttar 120439 most relevant words along withrepparttar 120440 customer’s name and city. (Excerpting focuses onrepparttar 120441 most important parts ofrepparttar 120442 letter.) 4.Copies and printouts. Copy customer letters and insert them in your press kits and customer presentation folders. Format your customer testimonial file and include printouts with proposals. 5.Newsletter and website. Include customer testimonials in your newsletters and on your website. When appropriate, place testimonials next to descriptions of specific products or services.

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