Are You Talking With Your Customers or Marketing To Them?

When I was pounding the books in college and “learning” about marketing at OIT (I like to say it’s the “MIT” of Oregon I learnerd all kinds of great marketing stuff.

You know the stuff…

• Talk about what separates you from the other competition
• Breaking down your customers objections
• How to do market research when you create a product or business
• How to write up nice looking and fancy fliers and ads

… the stuff that really pulls in the customers in droves… right?

Well… not really.

Marketing To Customers Versus Talking With Customers

The other day I was chatting with my little bro who’s in his sophomore year in college right now working on a marketing/business degree.  When I was talking to him about his damn economics test he was working on I had flashes in my brain of what I “learned” in college about running a business and marketing for THE REAL WORLD.

This is what I came up with after remembering what college taught me…

What I learned in college about marketing was more about BRANDING and ADVERTISING… not MARKETING.

I had no clue back when I was in college… I thought I was a friggin’ marketing expert when I graduated.

Little Did I Know…

When I finally got out into the real world and started my own business… as a “Marketing consultant” of all things… it took me a little while to learn what marketing really is… direct response marketing that is.

Marketing TO customers and prospects (as I learned in college to do) is WAY different than direct response marketing and talking WITH customers and prospects…

… and I can tell you with 100% confidence that you build stronger customer loyalty, increase response rates, have happier customers, and have WAY MORE FUN talking with customers and helping them solve their problems than marketing TO customers. But maybe that’s just me.

People Like Conversations…

People are social creatures and like to feel like they’re in a conversation… no one likes to be talked AT all day… they like to be talked WITH.

So, in your marketing here’s a few tips to try out next time:

• Talk or write in conversational tones… like you would to your friends.  Rather than sending out an email to your email list looking like a complete ad or pitch… write as if you were writing to tell your best friend about this “thing” you are telling them about.  Keep it short and personal.
• Provide value even in your marketing… don’t push for the sale before you’ve provided value and built trust… you’ll end up far better in the end.  So, next time when you get someone in your store or on your email list… how about trying to give them a bunch of value BEFORE you ask for the sale.  Give people a ton of great actionable tips, information, etc… then AFTER you’ve done that use the law of reciprocity and say, “now that I’ve helped you do x (or solve x), check this out… it’ll help you solve y (or solve another part of x).”.  That’ll close way higher than pushing for the sale upfront without providing value first. (isn’t that what friends do anyhow? )
• Ask people what they want… then give that to them.  Don’t underestimate the “smartness” of your market.  They know way more than you do (most of the time) on what the heck it is they want… or what problems they need solved.  So, ask your prospects what problems they have… then you need to go out and create something to solve their problem.  Don’t create a product then go out and try to find the market for it… that’s backwards… start with the market, then the problem, then the product.

That’s really about all you need to do in virtually any market and you’ll be better off than 90% of your competitors.

Build A Following… Not A List…

All in all, what I’m trying to say here is what I learned in college is great for building brands and building lists.  But when it comes to truly selling and being successful… you need to build followings and that isn’t easily done unless you can make a connection with your prospects… a personal connection.

So, stop building lists… start building followings… and start talking WITH your prospects rather than marketing TO them… you’ll be far better off in the long run and you’ll be wondering why your college professors didn’t teach you that way back when.  I did.