Years ago I heard a talk by the editor of a local newspaper talking about how businesses wasted their advertising dollars when placing ads.
In short his argument was a one shot advertisement may only be noticed by someone looking for that solution right then. But what about the people who weren’t ready, didn’t feel they had an issue at that moment? In the future they may but your advertisement wouldn’t be there.
Now that may sound self-serving on the newspaper’s behalf, but he had a real point.
Your job is to maximise your ROI from marketing/advertising.
At any one time only 3% of your prospects are ready to buy right now if you present an offer to them.
But what about the rest of your potential market?
Statistically around 6% – 7% would be open to buying. Another 30% could be looking for a solution, but it’s just not top of mind. i.e. It’s not urgent enough.
That gives you an extra potential audience size of around 37%. But most businesses ignore this in favour of the instant hit.
What could this mean to your bottom line?
Say you sell a $100 product. Out of every 100 prospects you make 3 sales = $300.
Even if you only get another 15% to buy in the next little while, this is an extra 15 sales = $1,500.
But go further. If say 50% buy upsells or back end sales of $500 over their lifetime that’s another 9 sales at $500 = $4,500.
Naturally if you sell higher value items this significantly improves your bottom line!
We have a cool Lifetime Value Calculator which you can access here. You’ll be surprised at how much more money you could be making if you employed simple upsell/backend sales techniques.
Remember, people only buy when they’re ready. Not when you need to make your numbers!
You need a system to bring the potential 37% into your orbit, build up trust and position your solution as the obvious choice for them so that when they’re ready to buy, they call you.
How? By taking a leadership position and demonstrating your knowledge, experience and competence. That you deeply understand their issues, telling them what they should be looking for in a solution and then proving that you can deliver. In short you become the authoritative source of information for your buyers.
Traditionally organisations have done this through “content marketing”. Producing valuable content that:
- Shares your world view. “This is how it should be done”. If you believe the best solution is to “zig” while most “zag”, say so. Just make sure you can back it up.
- Being a conduit and curator of valuable information. You don’t have to create everything yourself. Curating material which is directly of interest to your prospects will still elevate you in their eyes.
- Providing example solutions, answer questions and share success stories.
But you have to go further…
- Set your Pricing agenda. One of the first things most of us want to know is “I know I have a problem, but what’s the solution going to cost me – can I afford it?”
You need to educate prospects on what goes into your solution, what they should be valuing and why it’s the price it is. - Problems/Weaknesses. Be up front with who’s a good fit and who isn’t. By being clear as to where your solution works well and where it doesn’t engenders trust.
- Comparisons – Different approaches and solutions help your clients get clarity and compare options.
- Reviews/Case Studies provide social proof. “If it works for them, it may work for me”
- Best Practices – these are the best ways of solving the issues.
But don’t fall into the trap of just producing this content, hoping buyer will take action. Most won’t.
You have to strategically think through how capture prospect details and subsequently move them down the funnel with next step offers that draw them further and further into your sphere of influence. And when to suggest a “sales meeting”. It’s both an art and a science.
Which is where we can help.
We enable our clients to create complete sales funnels which target the right types of prospects, qualify them and close more high value business.
So if you’re not growing at the rate you’d like, call Rashid on 0414-913-334 and we’ll put a client generating strategy in place AND help you implement it.
