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THE NATURE OF THE CUSTOMER
Understanding your customer
can help you make more money.
This chapter will help you
to understand what people have in
common, and also what makes
us unique individuals. From the
basic urges of sex, gluttony
and avarice, to the man-made
desires for money, better ad
response, and a quicker way to
open an envelope, the mail
order market is driven by your
customers' minds.
For any given market, try to
understand what that market
buys and why. Answer the
"Why buy?" question in your head
for each of these top mail
order sellers.
- get-rich quick plans
- advertising
- books and reports about
making money
- mailing lists
- subscriptions
- printing
- postage stamps
- condoms
Postage stamps and printing
are easy enough - they're
absolute necessities. And
since people have been convinced
that advertising (paid
advertising), mailing lists and print
& mail are also absolute
necessities, they sell as if they
were necessary (sometimes
they are). Condoms? That's easy -
you don't have to look a
cashier in the face when you buy
them by mail, which saves
some people from embarrassment.
Get-rich-quick schemes are
bought because people are blinded
to logic as a result of our
society's money addiction,
(which is the sole reason
for the inner circle's existence).
As you become acquainted
with the mail order industry,
remember to always ask
yourself why consumers buy the way
they do. It will make your
success easier and faster.
PROVE THAT YOU'RE A REAL LIVE PERSON
Unless you meet them in
person or at least talk to them on
the phone, all of your
associates, customers and prospects
will think of you as just an
idea, not a real person. When
you can convince the
prospect that you are a real person,
you increase the chances of
making a sale. Become real to
your prospects and customers
by always listing phone numbers
with your address and making
note of the fact that they are
encouraged to call any time,
for any reason. If you have
your own publication, put
your photograph in it somewhere.
Even a publisher's notes
column in your own adsheet or
tabloid can do the trick by
adding a personal touch.
If you have opinions, state
them. Try to come across as
someone with a personality
and well-formed opinions. You
can't bond with your
customers if you come across as just
one more salesperson who's
too afraid to say anything
controversial or personal.
ELIMINATE TIME AND SPACE BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR CUSTOMER
Have you ever noticed how
you can be utterly captivated by a
salesletter but save your
money and not respond simply by
putting it down and
forgetting about it? Well think about it
because this is exactly what
your customers are doing! Phone
calls put more pressure on
people. Before you call, your
customer is aware of you
only as pieces of paper, but after
you call you are a real live
person, with at least a voice
if not a face. A customer
can throw your salesletter down
but when you are talking to
them they are forced to respond,
and response is what direct
marketing is all about (in fact
some call it direct response
marketing!). Phone calls are
expensive, so at first limit
them to calling to confirm
people's orders as you
receive them and telemarketing only
to past customers. Building
up your reality in their minds
will make future purchases
more likely.
PUT TIME AND SPACE BETWEEN YOUR CUSTOMER AND HIS PAYMENT
With cash and money order
payments, your customer acutely
feels the loss of money as
he pays you. A check is a little
less painful - the money is
lost later on - right now all the
customer has to do is sign a
little bit of paper; in a few
days a bank somewhere out of
sight and mind will
electronically deduct the
necessary amount from the customer's
bank account. Credit card
payments are even better since
payment is delayed by a
month or more, and that's why when you
accept credit cards you
usually increase business by 50% or
more. It's also important to
remember that with a credit
card, your customer can
spend money he doesn't even have. The
customer doesn't feel the
loss of money as acutely, since when
it comes time to pay off the
credit card each month, his
purchase from you is mixed
in with car payments, clothes,
dining out, and so on.
The more you allow your
customer to put time and space
between himself and his
payment to you, the more often, and
the higher, those payments
will be. Therefore, it is
important to take very
seriously the advice in chapter 13
regarding payment options.
WAKE UP THE CUSTOMER
Think of how you buy. Do you
respond to ads the first time
you see them? Probably not.
So I hope you don't expect
anyone to respond to your
ads the first time they see them.
When a company's advertising
is very frequent and you've
seen it for several months,
are you more likely to respond
to it? Probably.
Think of your prospect as
being comatose. It's all too
common for a marketer to tap
him lightly on the shoulder
then quickly dance away,
saying "Well, I guess he won't be
buying anything from
me". The smart marketer approaches the
prospect with ringing
cymbals and blaring horns, sits down
and makes himself at home.
He is not afraid to tell anyone
and everyone that they have
a world of trouble and that he
has the solution to it.
He'll pour some coffee over the
comatose prospect's head,
then some down his throat, and
communicate the fact that he
is a problem solver for as many
months as it takes for the
prospect to fully awaken. No new
advice for you here; this is
just a reminder of the over and
over and over and over
marketing principle discussed in
chapter 6.
FOUR THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CUSTOMER PSYCHOLOGY
What follows is a discussion
of some human psychological
characteristics which relate
to marketing. Before launching
into this, I must tell you
why I'm telling you all this (ie.
"what is this doing in
a mail order how-to book?"). Three
reasons:
1) sometimes your customer
or prospect will act (write,
talk) in such an extreme
fashion that he immediately exposes
his personality
characteristics. You may be able to
understand him or her
better, and be able to respond
appropriately, by reading
the information below. This is
never easy, and you may only
find it worthwhile to evaluate
and respond to individual
personalities when you're engaging
in very important
correspondence that can mean a lot of
money in the long run.
2) you may, from now on,
wish to create your sales materials
to appeal to a wider
cross-section of personalities, to
attract and persuade as many
people as possible.
3) to clarify and confirm
ideas put forth elsewhere in this
book, and further urge you
to immediately make the necessary
changes in your marketing
plans.
To read more click on the chapters below...
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