Sell your Products and Services on Benefits, not Features
People don't want to just buy "stuff". They buy "stuff" to solve their problems, ease their pain. The trouble is, most businesses just sell "stuff".
Unfortunatley, "stuff" is available everywhere so it has a commoditised price.
How much can you sell a pint of milk for or a packet of aspirin for ?Pennies - because you can get the same thing everywhere.
But if you sell someone a drink to refresh their maddening thirst, or something to soothe the pain of the headache that's threatening to see them locking their kids in the cellar and throwing away the key, then you can ask for more.
Price becomes a problem only when you haven't given your prospects, customers, and client's a good reason for it not being a problem.
It's a misconception to think people are becoming more price conscious.
They're not.
What they are becoming is more value conscious.
So you're going to improve your chances of increasing sales and profits if you forget all about the "low price" business and instead of concentrate on increasing value.
And the one way to do this is....
Add elements/bonuses to increase perceived value
People don't buy on price, but what they do want is value. So, increase the perceived value of your products and services. And the trick to pulling this off successfully is to make sure whatever it is has high perceived value to them, but costs you very little to produce or give.
For this reason, information, even in the form of CD's and DVDs is great because all it costs you is the time to compile it once, and then the few pennies it costs to reproduce and send the disc itself.
But be generous here - don't necessarily think cheap is best. Remember your long - term customer value is where the profits are.
It's a mistake to think your business is "different" and there's nothing you can add like this.
In Ireland a small town butcher has begun giving away free professionally - printed recipe cards in his shop. And in exchange for your name and address and email address, he'll give you a handsome binder to put them in.
If you want to cook one of the recipes, you can hand in the card and they'll deliver everything you need to make the meal in a box for you: meat, vegetables, sauces... everything.
He charges premium for this, of course, and he's already the most expensive butcher in the town. But it's added service and something no - one else, not even the low cut - price supermarkets do (they should).
Then there's a dentist in Australia who gives his child patience a little card that gets stamped after every visit. After the card is full, the kids get a free bike.
The bikes probably cost a few hundred dollars.
Big deal.
How much are all those visits worth to the dentist?
How keen will the kids' parents be to pay his higher fees - and pay them often - because they now have a dentist the kids can't wait to see?!
If a dentist and a butcher can do this, so can you.
Recent Comments
2
Great post and clever business men. I don't have a tele but when I visited daughter in Australia there was an advert on for Nutribullet. So cleverly done I REALLY wanted one, even though I was aware of the marketing stategy! It was going to revitalise me, make me whole again, they were selling it on benefits! :)
Hey this was really a mind twist. I'm never thought about some of these value twists. Thanks!