Customers only buy when they believe that what you are selling is useful and offers them good value.
The solution is to make it easy for your customer to decide to buy:
- You need to anticipate the questions that your customers may have, even before they choose to enter your business
- You need to tell them how your product will solve a problem that they have
- You need to educate them about how your products will add value to their lives
- You can also show them what their life will be missing if your product (or service) is not a part of it.
This can be challenging to do. It will require you to do some analysis to understand what exactly is going on.
Here is some help to get you started.
1. Customers don’t know what you are selling
If I don’t know what you are selling, obviously, I can not buy from you.
I still see businesses doing offline advertisements or online promotions without taking into account whether their potential customer knows what they are selling.
Or, I see them targeting everybody on the market without having a clear idea of the kind of customer they are looking for.
The solution: know who are you selling to.
You need to know what your target market is.
If you say “everybody”, that is your problem right there.
You need to have a clearly defined target audience.
Start by looking at your most profitable customers.
Or, in other words, the kind of customer that you would prefer to see coming into your business.
- What kind of life do they live?
- What kinds of things are they interested in?
- What are they looking for and
- How does your product fit into their life?
This is called creating a “customer persona” or “avatar.”
The “customer persona” or “avatar” is not a real person.
It is an idea that helps you keep in mind who you are selling to and what this kind of customer is looking for when they go out to buy.
2. Customers don’t understand the value of your product
Why should I buy from you when there are three other places selling similar products at cheaper prices? What value is your product offering me?
Often, customers don’t buy because they don’t understand the product. Either it’s too complex or the features and benefits are unclear.
This is often a problem when competing products are very similar to each other.
The solution: determine the top 3-5 benefits of your product (or service) and keep repeating this in your marketing messages.
Social media marketing can really help you here:
- Create videos of you interviewing satisfied customers. Ask them why they like your product and why they would recommend it to other customers.
- Create demonstration videos showing potential customers how to use your product. Focus on the value that your product is adding to your customer’s life and how it is helping them solve problems.
Also, make sure that your website (or your Facebook page) contains short and understandable explanations of what your product does.
3. Customers think your products are unnecessary
If I don’t believe that I need your product in my life, I will not buy from you.
To tackle this issue, you have to know what needs your product or service fulfils? Will it save time? Will it make my life easier?
This is very similar to making it clear why your product has value. Then use this in your communication and marketing.
The solution: explain to customers why your products are necessary for their lives.
For example, create a short video to talk about the problems that your product solves and explain what benefits your product brings.
To set yourself apart from your competitors, you can also consider using marketing that shows how not having your product can create problems in your customer’s life.
4. Customers cannot easily access your products
Even if you have the best marketing team in the world and everybody knows what you are selling and what the value of your products is, if I cannot reach you, I cannot buy from you.
Can your target market easily reach you? At your store, online, by phone or through Whatsapp?
Note: this pertains to how easy it is to reach you physically, true. But it also pertains to how good your customer service is.
If it is difficult to buy from you, your customers will look for an easier solution.
The solution: pay attention to where you are doing your marketing and how good your customer service is.
Can customers from where you are doing your marketing easily access your products? If you do online marketing, have you made sure to only target those customers from a particular city or region?
Secondly, what can you do to increase access to your business? Can you offer delivery services at a discount? Do you have mobile salespersons? Can you offer service after working hours? Or, can customers buy online through a trusted channel?
5. Customers don’t trust you
These days, it is easy to manipulate information to create misinformation. We all know businesses that make exaggerated claims to make you buy things only for you to find out that what they told you is not true.
We have all also heard stories of online and offline scams.
Customers have become suspicious. They don’t want to spend money that they have worked hard for on a product that will not do what it says. Or in a business that will cheat them.
The solution: fix issues that may cause trust problems.
Then focus on building – or rebuilding – trust.
To build trust, you need to provide a high level of transparency. You also need to demonstrate that you are putting the customer’s needs first. This means being honest about what your product can or cannot do.
It is also important to establish an ongoing trust relationship with your customers. This can be done through:
- Consistent communication
- Providing value even after the sale is complete
- Being responsive to feedback
Remember: trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.
6. Customers don’t have enough money
Finally, customers are not buying from you because they do not have the money.
Can the customer afford the price you are charging?
Or, if they have the money, do they believe that the purchase is justified?
Justification of the price is related to how much value a customer believes that they are getting in exchange for their money.
They will be asking themselves how your product – or service – compares to what they can buy elsewhere.
The solution: make it easy for your customer to buy.
Again, there are multiple ways to do this:
- You can add cheaper versions of your product or service
- You can offer pay-as-you-go options
- You can introduce buying on credit
- You can allow customers to pay in instalments
Conclusion
Understanding what your customers’ needs are – and then showing them how your product or service can solve that problem – is one of the best ways to convince customers to buy from you.
It is also one of the key ways that you can distinguish yourself from competitors!
