As a business owner, you understand that your customers go on a journey with your brand – from a stage of awareness to consideration – before being ready to purchase.
This can take a LONG time and it is important to patiently nurture these leads. To “go for the kill” is a tactic that often turns away potential customers that may have converted over time with a bit more wisdom and tact.
I encourage my customers to tell 3 kinds of stories.
#1 Case Studies
Success is attractive and the fear of missing out is a powerful motivator.
A fleshed out story is far more powerful than a mere testimonial. By telling the before and after stories of how your existing clients have been catalysed by your products, you are allowing audiences to visualise their own potential success. It offers identification, clarity of vision and creates confidence to go down the same path of committing to your product / service.
You have a great product / service and they won’t want to be missing out.
#2 Talk to their Needs, don’t push your Product
It is not necessary to always talk about your products.
Instead, talking to the problems of your customer and showing that you understand their needs can go a long way in building trust. It gradually helps your customers appreciate that you are an expert in your field. If this storytelling exchange happens in the form of a conversation (as oppose to a landing page or post or EDM campaign), it has the added benefit of giving you a sense of their readiness to engage with your different products.
As leads either explicitly ask for more information OR are hitting your relevant landing pages at a higher-than-usual frequency (if you’ve got your website and CRM linked up), you can begin to take a more direct approach and speak about your products. The greater the demonstration of their interest, the more directly you can promote the product / service. The wisdom and strategy is in the timing. 🙂
#3 Share Expertise
Adding value BEFORE selling is a great way to demonstrate to potential customers that you are the expert in your field. And they’ll want to be on the receiving end of it.
But experts don’t often realise they are experts. I recommend my clients think about the questions they most often get around a product / service. What’s your view on the industry in general – what are the trends, challenges and opportunities that your customers want your insights on?
Sharing your thoughts on these broad themes will give customers valuable insights and, more importantly, confidence that you are the expert / authority in your field. This builds trust. If you have been engaging your customers regularly, when they are primed and ready to make a purchase, your brand will surely be front of mind.
I hope these tips have helped. I’m working on some articles ahead on playing the long SEO game (you don’t have to spend on Google Ads!) and positioning yourself as a subject matter expert. Do look out for those and let me know what other topics you’d like to hear about. 🙂
