Marketing Mind Games
In my job as a business developer, I spend an outrageous amount of time thinking about how to make people give me their money. Whether it’s for my personal business or for a client I’m working with, the end goal of my job is to get the audience we are marketing to say, “Please take my money.” Of course, this is not an easy task, or is it?
Have you ever wondered why it seems like some people are raking in money while selling the same thing that you do? Well, that’s the thing, you’re really not selling the same thing. Oftentimes, there is a disconnect between what you are selling and what the customer is buying. This is the number one mind game that you need to master.
Before we go into that though, here’s something that you need to know, every sale starts with the mind.
Before a prospect removes their wallet and gives you their money, you have to have won them over in their mind. They have to have seen that it’s cheaper to buy your solution (your product or service) than to remain with the problem that your product solves.
For example, if you sell healthy snacks/food, anytime someone buys from you, what they are saying is that “I have come to believe that it is cheaper to spend #1,000 on a healthy snack, rather than damage my body by eating junk food”
You only make sales when you can convince your prospects that the above is true. Every time they say “I’ll get back to you,” what they are really saying is, “I don’t think what you are selling is valuable enough for me to spend that much on it.”
But more on that later.
Marketing Mind Game #1 — What is your Audience Buying?
I learned this from Seth Godin early enough. Whenever someone buys your product or service, in reality, they are hiring the product/service to solve a problem for them. Therefore, you will connect with your customers better when you know why they need your product, and what problem your product solves.
Here’s an exercise for you,
Write this down.
If my customer doesn’t have my product/service, ____________________ will happen to them.
Here’s an example for me as a content writer.
If my customer does not have good content, then they can’t attract their customer’s attention and will not make sales.
So, this shows that my target audience is not necessarily buying content, they are buying their customers’ attention and sales.
This marketing mind game revolves around you providing solutions to problems.
Remember people spend money in the direction of their problems.
Your ability to position your product or service as the solution to their problems is what helps you make sales.
Marketing Mind Game #2 — What Conversations are your Audience Having?
One of the most effective ways of marketing is to tap into the conversations that your audience is already having. This is why you need to be intimately familiar with who your audience is, and what their life looks like. Whenever I hold strategy sessions for startups and small businesses, one of the first things I do is force the owners to think deeply about who their customers are.
If you are a makeup artist, your customers cannot be everybody that needs makeup. That is way too broad. You can focus on those that want to learn how to do their makeup at home by themselves. You can focus on the partygoers that like to do makeup every Saturday. Of course, this does not mean that you cannot serve either of these market segments. it simply means that you’re choosing to focus exclusively on one specific market segment and talk to them.
Marketing is meant to be personal, and you can’t get personal if you don’t know who you’re talking to.
So, you need to answer the question, who is my customer, and what conversations are they having inside their head.
The way to answer this is to create content. With content, you can find out what your prospects are thinking, and begin to use that information in your marketing.
Marketing Mind Game #3 — Sell a Feeling, not a product.
This aspect of marketing is a little hard to do, but if you get it, you will never look for money again. Here’s a secret that all copywriters know: Almost all buying decisions are made emotionally. That is people buy because of how they feel and then rationalize it.
You probably already know what I’m talking about. That moment when you don’t have a lot of money, but you still choose to buy that product that you don’t really need but you absolutely want. After buying it, you then begin to rationalize why it is a necessary purchase. If you think deeply about it, you realize that it was never about rational decisions. It was always about what you “felt”
How do you apply this to your marketing?
- Tell stories about your brand and your products. Stories at the quickest ways to make people feel something. I’ve been experimenting with this lately, and trust me, this is a secret that will 10X your sales easy. Talk about who you are, What you believe in, why you think your products are necessary. Remember, people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
- Paint a picture of an ideal future: When you communicate who you are and what you believe to your audience, The next thing is to show how your product or service further translates those values to your audience. An iPhone is just a phone, but Apple has an identity of class, of being for the innovative people, the outsiders, and the game-changers, and they have connected that identity to their phones. The result? Your prayer point is to buy an iPhone. Now do the same with your product. Sell a story about who you are, and what you believe. Then let your product become proof of your story.
An iPhone is proof of Apple’s uniqueness. A pair of Nike sneakers are proof of Nike’s “Just Do it” Story. But, no company embodies this mind game more than Coca-Cola. Their slogan?
TASTE THE FEELING.
My Question for you is this:
