Do Your Customers Trust You?

Do Your Customers Trust You?

by | Oct 20, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Trust… It’s not just for personal relationships.  It’s a MUST in business too!  

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes.  Do you trust the vendors that you do business with? Are they providing you with or doing things for you that consciously or subconsciously earn your trust? If you stop trusting them, do you continue to do business with them? Your customers and prospects make their decisions based on the same criteria.

Trust is never given; it is something that must be earned!

Regardless if you own or run a B2B or B2C operation, trust is the cornerstone of your brand.  It’s not enough for you to know that you are trustworthy. The key is getting your current customers and future customers to know that you are trustworthy.  There is only one way, and that is to “prove it”.

The author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, said, “Trust is the glue of life. It is the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships”. 

Simply said, the more people trust you the more they will buy from you, and the more they will recommend you to others.  

In today’s competitive world, you can no longer assume people trust you. You must prove it, every day. No one thing is more powerful in building and growing a successful business than TRUST!

Rule #1 to building trust has always been Under-Promise and Over-Deliver.  In the year of COVID, the new #1 rule is Safety, creating an environment where your customers are safe to shop. According to nearly every recent survey, being safe while shopping is a top concern.  

If you would like to see 10 Ways to Build Better Trust within your business, click here.

We suggest you gather a group of trusted employees or friends and discuss ways to build trust within your company and then, exploit them. If you would like help implementing this in-house workshop, contact me. I will be glad to help.

And if you would business tips like this delivered to your email inbox every week, subscribe to my Sound ADvice newsletter in the box below.

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Priceless

Priceless

by | Oct 6, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Do you remember the old Mastercard campaign?  The title of it was “Priceless” and the impact of the campaign was “priceless”.  “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.” This “idea” turned this struggling company around and saved the brand. 

Here is a link to one of the memorable ads: https://www.marketingweek.com/mastercard-priceless-campaign/ 

As they say in baseball, we are heading into the 9th inning of 2020, or as we call it in business, Q4.

Faster than you can say, “Trick or Treat”, or know who the World Series Champion will be, the all-important holiday shopping season will begin.

Do you have an idea that is “Priceless”?

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the businesses with the best promotions typically have the strongest sales, but how do they come up with these brilliant ideas?  First of all, to get more than your fair share, the idea doesn’t have to be brilliant or “priceless”. A good idea is better than no idea at all.

Ideas sell.  If you are simply opening your door, hanging mistletoe, and decorating with garland or a wreath, and playing Christmas music, don’t expect a big uptick in your sales.

I’m not talking about creating a “priceless” ad campaign for the holidays, although that wouldn’t hurt. I’m talking about building an event, a promotion, something designed to energize your current customers and attract new customers.  

The trick is coming up with the idea.  Don’t try to do it on your own.  The old rule, “One of us is never as smart as all of us”, holds true when coming up with and creating successful promotions.  The first step is to create a theme. Gather your valued and trusted employees and come up with something unique. Use Google to help, she has hundreds of ideas.

If you would like additional help with creating a holiday promotion event, click here for 12 Tips to Creating and Executing a Holiday Promotion or reach out to your media rep that provides these weekly tips to you. They will gladly help you come up with ideas.

We hope the idea you come up with is “Priceless”!

What you just read is from this weeks Sound ADvice newsletter that can be yours if you subscribe using the box below.

Would you like professional advice from my team of marketers at WOWO radio?  Drop me a note Scott@WOWO.com

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The Drill or The Hole

The Drill or The Hole

by | Sep 15, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Every year there are millions of drills sold across North America. But here’s the crazy thing…not one person who bought a drill wanted a drill! What they really wanted were holes! 

If another tool would have made the holes faster, better, easier, or cheaper they would have bought that tool, not the drill.

In most business and product categories, including yours, the same is true. None of your customers want to buy your goods or services. They only want the “benefits” those goods and services deliver. 

No one wants to buy insurance; they want to be protected.  Nobody wants an aspirin; they want pain relief. 

All of the traditional sales training courses address the need for selling benefits versus features. It’s pretty basic stuff, and yet we often expect our advertising to sell features to consumers who only care about benefits.

Here is the litmus test that distinguishes features from benefits:  A feature remains true if the customer does not buy.  For example: “John Deere tractors are built better”.  

A benefit only occurs if the customer buys.  For example: “Nothing runs like a Deere. Your tractor will have fewer breakdowns, saving you money and time”.

Here is another feature vs. benefit example for a regional auto parts store: 

Feature: “A million different auto parts and accessories”

Benefit: “You’ll get your parts in a day or less”.

Your benefit statement should always answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” from your customer’s perspective.

Look at your next radio script or ad proof. Are your ads only talking about features (you) and not telling what’s in it for them (benefit)?  They don’t want a drill; they want a product that makes a hole!

Click here if you would like me to work with you to uncover the best possible benefit statements for your next advertising campaign.
And if you would like more business and marketing tips like this, sign up for my Sound ADvice news letter in the box below.
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Building Trust With Your Marketing

Building Trust With Your Marketing

by | Aug 25, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Today, more than ever, successful business owners know that the route to higher closing ratios and sales is built upon stronger customer relationships, and the single most important element to building and keeping relationships is built upon trust.

“Trust” is defined as, “Confidence in a person or thing because of the qualities one perceives in them”. Your advertising, your website, and your front line people can create the qualities your prospects perceive in you and cause them to choose you over your competitors when they go online.

The internet has changed everything!  Not only has it changed the way people buy, but it has also changed the way people think about your business. When prices and promises seem to be similar on every review and website, “trust” becomes the great tiebreaker.

If your customer count and page views are not reflected in your sales, you need to examine three key areas:

1.) Does your advertising pre-sell customers and build realistic expectations?

2.) Does your website answer the questions your customers are asking?

3.) Are your front line salespeople competent and confident?

The powerful three-way marketing of credible advertising to pre-sell your prospects, combined with helpful websites/Facebook pages and knowledgeable salespeople to improve your closing ratios, will increase your sales.

In the Top 10 Trust Techniques, Technique Number 1 is: Train Your People in Product Knowledge.  Selling is merely a transference of confidence.  If your people have confidence in the quality and value you deliver, that confidence will be transferred to your prospects when they ask questions or hear a presentation.

Click here to review my Top 10 Trust Techniques to create a pre-need trust and preference for your website and your salespeople.
 
What I just shared with you is from a recent edition of my Sound ADvice business tips newsletter that I can send to you free of charge.  Just fill in your information in the box below and then be on the lookout for Sound ADvice in your email inbox nearly every Wednesday.
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Make Your Words Count

Make Your Words Count

by | Aug 4, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Several great minds, including literate Mark Twain and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, have been credited with saying in one form or another, “I apologize for the length of this letter. If I had more time, it would have been much shorter”.  

Whether giving a speech, visiting with a customer, or writing an ad, being concise and unique is far better than being long-winded, typical, and boring.  

Remember when we only had a limited number of automotive choices?  A typical mid-sized market might have had Ford, GM, Chrysler, and maybe one or two German or Japanese products to choose from.

In that same period, there were probably only one or two fast-food chains and no big box stores in your market.

Today, the typical market has added BMW, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Tesla, Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Audi, Volvo, Jaguar, Honda, Acura, and Lexus, just to mention a few.

In addition, McDonald’s now has many competitors in the burger category alone, not to mention the taco restaurants, Italian eateries, sandwich shops, even convenience stores all vying for the consumer’s attention.  

The average consumer today receives in excess of 3,600 advertising messages a day, including radio, TV, newspaper, packaging, signage, internet, and more.

Before today’s cluttered and competitive world, many advertisers succeeded with clichés and by simply keeping their name in front of the public. Today it’s much more competitive, and simple name recognition and repetition are not enough to ensure a return on your advertising investment. You need to brand your business before the consumer is in the market for your products or services.

Branding by definition necessitates differentiating yourself from your competition. Being different cannot be accomplished by saying the same thing as your competitors or using the same tired clichés used by other marketers. 

Whether in your advertising or when having conversations with customers, make sure the words you use aren’t the same words that all your competitors are using!  

I have developed a list of clichés that should be avoided if your advertising is to stand out among the crowd and be remembered. To see the complete list of clichés, click here.  

And if you would like more advertising and business tips delivered to your inbox every week, subscribe to my Sound ADvice email, free of charge, by filling in your information in the box below.

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Experience Matters

Experience Matters

by | Jul 28, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

It’s been said that a business owner wears 15 different hats: owner, manager, purchasing, advertising, marketing, human resource officer, receivables, payables, accounting, estimator, budgeting, hiring and firing, job superintendent, trainer, maintenance, customer complaints, inventory control, baby-sitter… and I’m sure you can come up with many more.

Running a business has never been easy and the challenge of attracting and keeping customers in today’s competitive world has become even more difficult and a never-ending process.  There’s more competition today than ever before. It’s no longer just the new competitor that pops up across town but the hundreds, and potentially thousands, of like businesses that consumers have access to via e-commerce that you are competing with today!

To compete and remain relevant, we must be sharper than ever. We must ensure that we do not give our current customers a reason to look elsewhere and we need to be more attractive than ever to your potential new customers.

E-commerce has made things easy and less expensive, and of course “easy” and “cheaper” are two of purchasing’s great decision-makers.  So how do you compete in today’s world?  It can be summed up in one word – “EXPERIENCE”!

If the customers’ shopping and buying experience really is the difference-maker, how can you make sure you create an experience so profound that they will continue to choose your business over any e-commerce company or local competitor? It’s never just one thing; it’s all the little things that add up to the “I won’t go anywhere else” factor.

Tip #2 in the 11 Easy Tips to Creating a Better Customer Experience is having a clean parking lot. Sounds simple right? How many parking lots have you seen broken and crumbled, or that have wrappers and cigarette butts scattered about? Often, the parking lot is the very first impression a customer has. Keeping it clean and attractive is one of the things that will add up and help create that WOW experience. The same rule applies to bathrooms, only they need to be spotless!

Tip #6 is “Focus on the Customer”.  Everything you do and every strategic move you make should be focused on making a better “experience” for your customers.  America’s most successful grocery store owner, Stew Leonard, focused the entire experience on customer satisfaction and went as far as creating the quote and living by it, “Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread Rule 1”.

Running a business tomorrow is not going to get any easier. Getting customers to know you and feel best about you is key to getting them to consider doing business with you. Then, giving them an “experience” that keeps them coming back and telling others about you is vital to future growth and success.

Pay attention to the little things and create an “experience” that your competitors can’t compete with!

If you would like to see the 11 Easy Tips to Creating a Better Customer Experience click here .

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