The Importance of Educating Your CustomersWritten by Andre Plessis
An indispensable and fundamental basis in your marketing goal should be to educate your customers. You should first educate them to your products or services.Let's assume you sell houses. There are so many things to know about owning a home, such as signing agreement, inspection, closing costs, title, tax advantages, city tax, home appreciation, type of loans, PMI, credit history, how lenders use individuals credit, how to improve credit, down payment etc... that you should include all that in your advertising material. You could have a report on how to buy a home, how to improve credit, how to invest in real estate and that you could give for free. In other words you educate them on your services and your company. You educate them so that they have a better understanding of many benefits that an individuals has when he/she becomes a homeowners, which has effect of endearing you to them. One of most terrible mistakes I personally see is how many businesses fail to educate their customers about unique advantages offered to them. May be you offer a better quality product, may be you have a longer warranty, may be your support is 24/7/365 days, and how about all features you offer. What comes with package? You must state something that differentiates you from your competition and that will allow you to build your credibility. Once you educate your customers you will notice that your profits increase. Just think about how you make a purchase decision. When you considering making a purchase decision you most likely do not know much about product or service and if you have unanswered questions you are less likely to buy that product or service. If you educate your prospects on your offer and show them all benefits you will gain their trust and they will most likely buy from you. Think about it. How can you possibly make a buying decision if you do not know anything about a product or service? Remember that when it comes to spending money people want to make sure they are making right decision if not they will regret their purchase. Why not helping them make that decision by educating them and comforting by showing them that they are making a wide decision and it will be good for them and their family. Do not hesitate to show all benefits and less positive aspects of your offer and you will see a dramatic increase in sales. Few companies realize that they must lead customer to action and to a decision. People need to be what to do to obtain product and service they inquire about. Therefore it is extremely important that every sales letter, call or advertising you do should include some kind of education on your offer. The amazing thing is that people need to be led to action of buying. If there is a difference in price between you and competition you must clearly explain it to customers if not there will not understand why. Individuals rarely question why a price is higher or lower. They should question a low price for something and consider negative aspects of a product or offer but remember that it is always tempting to buy something cheaper as it translate in saving money which is a value to any prospect who want to make a purchase.
| | Do You Know The Common Direct Marketing MeasurementsWritten by Daegan Smith
John Wanamaker, a 19th century entrepreneur, once famously made statement, “I know that half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” Fortunately for today’s marketers, there are scientific ways to determine which half is wasted, and which half is not, through use of common direct marketing measurements. Advertising is, and has always been, part art and part science. With direct marketing, science part takes center stage as there are common direct marketing measurements that can be utilized to verify results of advertising. With increased popularity of direct marketing, success of advertising can be measured through a variety of common direct marketing methods such as cost per acquisition, cost per piece, and response rate. Before continuing in describing these common direct marketing measurements in detail, it is beneficial to review one of direct marketing tools needed to determine success of mailing. The most important direct marketing tool is response mechanism. This is how you can gauge success, or lack of success, of a direct mail campaign. This is mechanism by which prospect will use to respond - it may be a postcard to request more information, an 800 number to call, or a website address to place an order. You can than utilize this response to determine success of direct mailing. The first of most common direct marketing measurements is cost per acquisition. The cost per acquisition can be determined by taking total cost of mailing and dividing it by number of responses. For example, let’s say total cost of a mailing is $2,000 and 20 people respond. The cost per acquisition is $100. This is an important tool to find out if cost to obtain a new customer is in line with profits that you will receive.
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