THATBlog

Marketing, sales , and psychology go together like Jerry, George, and Kramer. Marketing, when done right, can be the way in which you make your business stand out from the rest. There is a science to marketing, just as there are data-backed strategies to sales, but the art is where the best separate themselves. In this post, we're going to take a look at three simple things you can do with your business to differentiate yourself and create a memorable experience that your clients or customers would be happy to repeat.

A strong foundation is important above all else, but once you've built that, then it's time to take a more nuanced approach. So, if you've covered your bases in terms of defining who you are, what you do, and who you do it for, now it's time to try some positive psychology into the marketing mix.

1. Using Sales Psychology in Your Marketing

What drives a  buying decision? What makes someone eventually choose to spend their hard-earned money on you? There are, of course, a thousand different variables, and each industry is different. But since we are in the Digital Marketing business, we are going to focus on how to drive leads and/or sales through your website. 

If you are looking for how to drive more traffic to your website, check out this post on Search Engine Optimization. But once you have the traffic, it's time to capture those leads and generate those sales. So, how do you do that? For one, use Urgency. If your prospect has time to go off and do months more research into your competition, they might still come back to you, but you're losing out on those opportunities. Why do they need to buy from you now, or at least soon? Creating deadlines for promotions is important, but it's more than that. What are they going to lose by not making their buying decision quickly? In psychology, the fear of loss is stronger than the desire for gain. Are they going to lose an edge on their competition if they don't use your service? Are they going to feel like they missed out on the chance to get your goods for the best possible price? The "keeping up with the Jones's factor" applies to more than just consumer goods. Let's use our agency as an example. If a restaurant comes to us and says that they want to drive more traffic to their website via Google Maps, that's great. But if they're on the fence, we might tell them honestly that, from the looks of it, the restaurant down the street has already started a local SEO campaign. And now, truly, if this restaurant doesn't start putting some resources towards bolstering their own, then their competitor down the street is only going to continue to take more of the web traffic.

2. Playing to the Five Senses

There is a reason that website design has become such a big industry. How your website looks will tell your customer a lot about your business. If you sell a product or a service, how can you tell a story or create an experience with your brand? Branding and lifestyle could be a whole other article, but for our purposes here, it deserves a mention. If you've ever walked into a restaurant or bar and immediately been impressed before you taste a single thing, then you've witnessed sensory marketing. If you've ever walked into a store and gotten a 'vibe' that you liked, or aspired to, then you've experienced it. If you've ever opened up a box to find packaging that feels good and catches your eye, then you know.

How can you create that with your website? What imagery are you using? What story are you trying to tell? How are you trying to make your customers feel about buying from you? Are you building a brand that your "buyer personas" would be proud to associate themselves with? Do you know what your Net Promoter Score is?

This is a simple idea, but hard to create, and harder to get right. Spending time thinking about your user experience will payoff in the long-run.

3. Peace of Mind Policy

How do you combat hesitancy? At each stage of the journey, most clients are still hesitant about parting with their money. They want to feel good about their purchase. They want affirmation that they made the right decision. Everyone wants to feel like a savvy shopper, a smart buyer. So, when they start to waiver, if they are on the fence, how do you close the deal without ever bringing in a salesperson? Giving them the peace of mind that they can always get their money back if they aren't satisfied will close that sale.

We won't give specific statistics here because we don't know your product, service, business model. But what we will say is this: if you are confident in what you have to offer people, then giving them the option to get their money back if they aren't satisfied will do more good for your business than it will ever hurt it. Of course, each "money-back guarantee" should have parameters, but just the fact that the option is there will make your clients or customers feel that much better about buying from you. Especially if your competition doesn't offer that. 

Conclusion

We hope that you found some value in this article, and while we can't pretend to know everything about your business, we can tell you that we have worked with businesses across dozens of widely-varying industries, and our marketing methodology has worked in each of them. We look at our clients as partners. You teach us about your business, about your product or service, and we will teach you how to pull your customers in to buy it. Still not sure you need marketing services? We'd be happy to have a call with you, look at your website, and tell you exactly what we would do to boost your traffic. And we'll do that for free. Our real value is more than just our strategies. Our value is in our day-in, day-out effort and relationships we build with our clients.