Get Your Message Across
You might have the best product in the world selling at the best price but if you don’t know how to make people aware of it and get them to buy it you won’t be successful in your business. Every bit of communication you send out to potential customers is another potential sales opportunity.
They are easy to miss and when you are busy with everything else that it takes to make a business work well, you could be losing valuable sales, time after time. When communicating with your customers or suppliers you are selling the vast majority of the time. You could be selling your product, or service, an appointment, or simply re-inforcing the message you want to give out. Either way you want your communication to be effective in getting results for your business.
Here is a really simple but effective way to plan or evaluate your letters, brochures, web site or any other communication. If your communication satisfies these criteria then you are doing well at getting your message across.
A - Attention
I - Interest
D - Desire
A – Action
ATTENTION – Your communication should get people’s attention. Never start with the detail. You will lose people straight away. Always start with something that will grab the eye. It could be a word or a few words or it could be a picture that is set in such a place as to draw the person’s eye towards your communication. This is like the shop window of your communication. If the shop window is dull, no one will want to look any further even if you are giving away £20 notes.
INTEREST – Having got the person’s attention you need now to provoke their interest. Most people’s number one interest is either themselves or their business (if you are selling business to business). In most cases people are provoked by something which will solve what they feel is a problem for them. You create interest by bringing the problem to the person’s attention. Be careful to draw the distinction between what your customer is buying and what you are selling. For example, you might be selling car alarms but no one buys a car alarm. People buy security, peace of mind, knowledge that their precious car is safe from all those nasty people. People don’t buy products or services, they buy solutions to perceived problems. You create interest by reminding them that there is a problem which you can solve for them.
DESIRE – Now that your customer is aware of the problem that they have, you now need to develop their interest in the fact that you have the solution and desire to buy your solution. Is it a panacea for their problem? Probably not. But you don’t say that otherwise you have built them up only to tell them that in effect your solution is only a part-solution. Good advertising infers that you are offering the solution rather than a solution. Of course your solution needs to be explained. The most common mistake people make here is that they list the features of their solution. Features are fine but people don’t buy features, they buy benefits. By all means mention features but only if they will help your potential customer to buy your solution. If it is not relevant to your buyer, even if you think it’s a nice feature, don’t waste your reader’s time with the detail. Your aim in generating interest is to motivate the customer to buy, and furthermore to buy from you.
ACTION – Having done all of the above it would be a shame not to get the sale. One of the biggest mistakes that sales people make is that they forget to ask for the sale. They make an assumption that the customer will be so enthusiastic about their solution that they will be chomping at the bit ready to place an order. Of course most people are waiting for you to ask them to buy. The same applies for written communication. I wish I had a pound for every time I have struggled for information on websites and in adverts to let me know how to buy. Your first task here is to prompt people to action. They may have a need and may think your solution will meet that need. They may love what your solution offers them, but they may not buy unless there is an incentive to do so. Deadlines are useful motivators to buy. If you don’t match their enthusiasm with an easy way to say yes, and do it quickly, you will lose the sale.
For example, ‘Offer closes 15 March – Hurry…’ is likely to promote a sense of urgency without which you will not get the sale. ‘Limited places available…’ is another example which is designed to make your customer feel like the product is so popular that if they don’t act now they will be worse off for not buying your solution. A call to action will direct the thoughts that you have provoked throughout your communication. Make sure you include it in your communication.
The second part of this is to tell people how to buy. Who do I ring? What do I say? When should I make contact? Where do I go? If you don’t answer these questions and give your customer a clear instruction you will not get the sale. You could even go as far as being quite descriptive so it might be better in some cases to say ‘Why not pick up the phone right now and call us on…’ rather than just ‘Phone…’ It sounds like you are patronising the customer but you are not. You are simply being clear about what you want them to do now to buy your solution.
There you go! Four simple keys to make every opportunity a sales opportunity.