Your Key To Attracting More Customers...

Is your business doomed to forever compete at the slimmest of profit margins as it vies for the title of being the "low price" leader? By learning how to garner more of the right clientele for your business, you can attract more customers and make more money than ever before...

In recent articles I have cited your need to not only obtain more customers, but to acquire more of the “right” customers for your business. The daunting questions are... “Who” are they and how do you find them? Isn’t this the exact essence of what marketing should be all about?

Unfortunately, that isn’t at all what is happening in the marketplace of our new economy. As a small business owner or professional your marketing dollars are few and precious. You don’t have the luxury or the lavish marketing budget of the big box stores such as Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Costco or Best Buy. They offer their customers tens of thousands of products and services, and have something for everyone.

These businesses are truly unique in that they can literally be “everything to everybody”. Your business can not. Your business doesn’t provide thousands and thousands of products and services -- so why are you marketing like you do? The traditional small business typically offers a very limited number of products and services -- yet like you, they market as if the whole world is their oyster.

Clearly, you aren’t advertising globally... but yet you continue to market to an expansive universe of potential prospects who at some point may “need” the product or service which your business provides. Allow me to give you an example of the problem that this represents. Consider for the moment that you are in the carpet cleaning business -- who “needs” the service that you provide? The last time I looked, with rare exception, every residence and every business has carpeting. Right? Therefore, your universe of potential prospects that may need their carpets cleaned is everyone on the planet... or more aptly, everyone in your city or town.

Do you see the problem as yet? You are undoubtedly trying to be everything to everybody by default, because that’s what your competition does. This has been the accepted methodology over time and to date you as yet haven’t learned a better process. The culprit in all of this is “demographics”, which is the long held benchmark evaluation tool for marketing and advertising.

Let’s take another look at our carpet cleaning scenario... here are the demographics: male or female, age 18 – 80, residence or business, single or married, working or retired, with an income of $20,000 to $150,000+. So, “who” exactly are you going to market to? They will all need your services some day -- but can you afford to wait until “someday” and rely on the law of averages for your phone to ring in the mean time? Of course you can’t. Relying on demographics alone is a risky marketing approach, as demographics only accounts for a very small percentage of a successful marketing equation.

The key to successful marketing that will attract clients who WANT your products and services lies in the arena of “psychographics”. Psychographics can quantify the motivational hot buttons of your prospects, which are emotionally driven. By gaining a comprehensive understanding of your potential prospects emotional psychographics, you can create a meaningful and effective marketing message that will directly appeal to prospects who WANT the product or service that your business provides. Perhaps even better is the fact that these prospects will be predisposed to purchase exactly what it is that you do provide.

Consider the benefits of not only attracting more customers -- but attracting your “ideal” customers and lots and lots of them. Your ideal customer is someone who:

» Enthusiastically buys your product or service.
» Immensely values what you do and shares your passion.
» Wants your product or service… they don’t merely need them.
» Is more than a user of your product or service… they love them.
» Makes larger purchases and more often than ordinary customers.
» Is more than a custom... they’re a loyal client... for life.
» Aren’t bashful about sending you referral after referral.
» And a whole lot more...

Let’s be brutally honest here... do you want your prospect to be a warm body with a pulse or an informed consumer that has a heart felt desire to obtain what it is that your business offers? Regardless of what business you are in, it’s a given that your #1 Priority is to make money. Then shouldn’t your #2 Priority be to acquire more ideal customers? How else can you achieve priority number one? Isn’t it time to stop beating the bushes with a shotgun approach trying to find the universal prospect who might possibly need your product or service some day?

The fact is that there are only 2 ways to generate revenue for your business... marketing and sales. Which brings us to the issue of having a USP (Unique Selling Proposition), does your business have one? If you are still marketing to the vast universe of potential prospects, you don’t.

What wouldn’t you do to gain a “competitive advantage’? When you learn how to differentiate your business from your competitors, you will instantly become unique in the eye of your ideal customers because you will now provide them with exceptional value that they can’t obtain anywhere else.

Once identified, your uniqueness then provides the true basis for attracting more customers and generating more income -- because your business is no longer doomed to forever have to compete on “price”. If you fail to differentiate your business from your competition by becoming genuinely unique, then your prospect is compelled to see every business including yours, as being exactly the same. Therefore, your prospect is simply left with no other comparison tool or alternative but to default to “price”.

Does your business want to forever compete on price and the slimmest of profit margins? Why would you?

When you learn how to attract more of your ideal customers... you will make more sales and more money than ever before!

Copyright © 2010 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.