One of the biggest issues I find in the marketing world is clients not knowing what their priorities are.
Or, to be precise, they think they know what they are, but they’re wrong.
Let me explain.
When meeting with a client for the first time, I’ll spend a lot of time chatting about what their aims are for the particular piece of marketing we’re working on.
Inevitably, they tell me they want to increase sales for a specific product or service, boost traffic to their website or something along those lines. Granted, they are legitimate business goals, but what they don’t talk about is wanting to show their customers how their product/service is going to make their life easier.
And that is what they should be focusing on.
Getting your priorities in order
I was chatting with a client the other day that ‘gets’ what I’m talking about. He’s a business consultant and comes across a similar issue when meeting with clients for.
For him, the frustration is when clients tell him they want to be the best in their industry at handling complaints.
Really?
Surely it would be better to offer exceptional service, so there are no complaints?
You see their focus is in entirely the wrong place.
Show your customer what you can do for them
Every piece of marketing you produce (and that includes internal communications) must be focused on the needs of your customers.
It must show them how you’re going to help them and not what you do.
That means tailoring your message about your service and products to show the main benefits they offer (you can talk about what they do later on in your copy).
That’s all your customers are bothered about.
They don’t care about your business per se; they just want to know if you can solve the problem they are facing (whatever that may be).
Sure, they’ll want to know a bit about you before making a final decision, but it’s essential you show them you are the company that puts their needs first by showing them how you’re going to help them.
If all you do is talk about how great you are, no one will listen.
The moral of this blog post is:
- Focus solely on your customer and what they want
- Concentrate on delivering the best product and service you can
- Be generous with your information