It’s the age-old question, isn’t it? How do you get customers to come to you? Here’s a two word answer: marketing gravity.
We all know how gravity works in the physical world. Gravity attracts one object to another. The bigger and closer an object is, the greater its gravitational pull. The same is true in the world of business, but with a twist. Today’s savvy buyers are not attracted to bigger ads or bigger billboards or bigger claims of bigger savings. They see through that self-serving bravado.
Today’s buyers are looking for value, pure, unadulterated value, and will reward the companies that provide it with a lifetime of loyalty. Just look at Apple, Starbucks, or Ikea as stellar examples of this phenomenon.
How can you provide value? Stop running frantically around in your business for just a few minutes and think about your customer, your core customer. The person at the center your marketing target. Got them in mind? Now ask yourself, what are their pressing needs? What do they really want from you?
One of my core customers are busy entrepreneurs, and what they want is to be able to build a thriving, successful business and still have a life. Helping them do that is my life’s work, and the value I bring to the marketplace.
People who work with me have answered the core customer question in the following ways:
- A home that they truly love and love coming home to after a busy day
- A sense of security and peace about their financial future
- A web site they are proud of that powerfully reflects their business identity
- A physical body that’s healthy and strong
Understanding your customer is critical because it tells you how to create value that will attract them to you. Now start meeting these pressing needs, simply, with no strings attached, for free. That’s why I write this blog and send it out by email. I have dozens of worksheets and whitepapers on my web site and host the occasional workshop, all for free.
My clients have formed books clubs on topics related to their services and conducted hands-on training classes featuring their products. Others offer an up-front assessment, a personality profile, and even an energy audit. All of these things work like gravity. First, a potential customer comes into closer proximity to you and, then, having experienced real, authentic value, is pulled into your world.
What we must do, then, is rethink marketing at every level and reengineer it around value. We must drop our silly slogans and delete our puffed-up promises and replace the noise with generous help that meets real needs. This is the way forward in our brave new marketing world.
