Marketing is about influencing the decision to buy…
Almost a century ago John Wanamaker, who many consider to be the father of modern advertising and a pioneer in marketing, said ”half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half”.
So what is marketing? The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines the word marketing as ‘the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements PROFITABLY‘. Wikimedia breaks this statement down simply to say that marketing is used to IDENTIFY the customer, SATISFY the customer and KEEP the customer.
However according to survey responses from MarketingSherpa’s 2011 Email Marketing Benchmark the number one challenge when it comes to email marketing was ‘targeting recipients with highly relevant content’.
So to make your marketing more successful you need to leverage something call the ‘buying cycle’. What on earth are you on about now you may ask? The ‘buying cycle’ is a process customers go through to make a purchase. It can be broken down in to 4 main stages:
1 – The awareness stage
The customer identifies a need or problem. This is sometimes called the ‘inspiration stage’ where the customer thinks ‘wouldn’t it be cool to have/use/wear’ etc. Your job is to capture their attention whilst they have this child like wonder.
2 – The research/comparison stage
The customer starts to look for a product or service that meets their needs. This is sometimes called the ‘hunter/gather stage’ where the customer starts to try and find what they are looking for. You need to be there with examples to fulfil their needs.
3 – The validation stage
This is the stage where a customer leans logically and emotionally towards a specific product or service. This is sometimes called the ‘critical parent stage’ where they begin to question themselves such as ‘can I trust this person’, ‘can I afford this’, ‘will it do what I want’ etc. This is where you use your knowledge and experience to help them.
4 – The purchase stage
This is the final part in the process and is the action of ordering and buying from your business. This is sometimes called the ‘joy of purchase stage’. As a good sales person, your aim at this stage is to heighten the feelings from the ‘inspiration stage’ and lessen those from the ‘critical parent stage’ so your customer leaves happy with they were looking for and will tell their friends about their purchase, you and your business.
So how well do you know really know ALL your customers? Working in the dive industry you know that an important part of your business is knowing WHO your customers are and what THEY want.
To be successful with your marketing you need to be able to answer the following questions:
- What are the biggest problems my customers are trying to solve?
- What does he or she need the most?
- What information are they typically searching for?
We have built some brand new cool email templates to help you with your marketing which can be downloaded and then used/adapted by clicking this link ‘http://www.eve.padi-islands.com‘.
We have also built a recorded webinar to look at how you might build a customer profile for a course to create ‘Hot Leads’ and then take advantage of the ‘buying cycle’. To view this recorded webinar click the big blue button below:
We have also put together the SQL coding you will need if you are an EVE user to power up your EVE Agent to send these emails as automated ‘warm touches’. To download the SQL coding click the big blue button below:
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