These 2 Strategies Are Key to Gaining a Customer — Not Just Making a Sale
Gaining a true customer is both more difficult and more valuable than simply making a sale.
Making a sale is easy. You can offer a discount or a coupon. You can blast your audience with ads and emails. Chances are, you’ll get a decent number of sales that way.
But will those one-time sales turn into repeat customers? Probably not — unless you can do two specific things:
- Develop a high-level, compelling, trusted brand message.
- Combine that message with effective calls-to-action.
Here are a few tips.
Appeal to your customers’ wants and desires — not necessarily their needs.
I was once in a retail clothing store trying on a sweater when I turned to the salesperson and admitted, “You know, I don’t really need this sweater.” He said, “Of course you don’t. You probably don’t need anything here.”
He made a good point: I wasn’t there to find something I needed. I stopped in because perhaps I’d come across something I wanted.
This is the case for most companies, at least in developed nations — your customers don’t actually need the product you’re selling.
In fact, they might not even want the product. What they want, most often, is a feeling, or a result, and your product happens to be the way to get that feeling or result.
Prolific marketing expert Seth Godin says it best in his book This Is Marketing, using drill bits as an example.
When someone purchases a drill bit, they’re not looking for a gorgeous drill bit.
That person buys a drill because they want to hang some shelves, and they have a vision of a tidy apartment lined with beautiful, neat shelving.
Maybe another person buys a drill bit because his or her children want an outdoor playhouse, and the mom or dad is missing the drill bit they need to put it together and create that special moment for their kids.
So that’s what Ryobi or any other drill company is really selling: the image of a life improved by their product.
In the B2C world, that’s so often the case.
You’re not marketing the product — you’re marketing the image of a picture-perfect life, with your products as the centerpiece.
Ralph Lauren is one of the best in the business at doing this. The brand creates an entire universe with its photography, telling the consumer that if they wear these clothes, buy those jeans, they’ll be in the country on a sunny day, living that upscale, aspirational lifestyle.
Of course, a $200 pair of Polo Ralph Lauren jeans isn’t 10 times better than a $20 pair by a Target or Wal-Mart brand. But their sexy, provocative marketing certainly is.
So that’s one part of the equation. However, strong branding and on-point marketing aren’t enough on their own.
There must also be a sense of urgency to make a purchase.
A “take action now” prompt meant to push a consumer toward immediate conversion.
Otherwise, the customer won’t feel as though they really need to make that purchase right now. And they’ll decide to come back and purchase it some other time. (Spoiler alert: they won’t.)
Often, a sense of urgency is created by an online retailer flashing big, bold “limited time offer” or “flash sale ending soon” messaging.
But this isn’t the only way to create a sense of urgency.
Other great strategies are:
- Notifying a consumer of product scarcity (“Hurry, only 4 remain in stock!)
- Offering a limited-time reward if a purchase is made right away (Complete your purchase within two hours to get free shipping).
- Simply calling a product “new” for as long as is reasonable — people generally want to be one of the first to try a new product
One client of SellUP — the digital marketing company where I serve as CEO — recently utilized the “limited availability” strategy and saw impressive results.
American Giant, an American-made apparel company, recently began offering men’s jeans as a new product. But they hadn’t produced many yet, so availability was limited (and they let customers know this). Demand was incredibly high, and the jeans flew off the shelves. Customers were worried that if they didn’t buy now, they wouldn’t get a chance to later.
But that wasn’t the only reason American Giant jeans were so popular.
American Giant is successful because they utilize call-to-actions and are bolstered by strong, specific brand messaging.
They’ve got an incredibly strong brand: high-quality, American-made clothing worn by hard-working people. When you see an American Giant ad or promotion, you see everyday, relatable people — creative, hard-working self-starters, food truck owners, craftsman, small business owners.
Their branding speaks to a wide audience, and their call-to-actions convert sales.
Ideally, these two key components will complement each other. One isn’t nearly as valuable without the other.
Because it takes appealing to two inherent human desires to position your product for a high number of sales: the desire to find products that will better their lives in some way, and the desire to not miss out on a great offer or product.
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