Understanding Your Offer
Making your offer readily understood by your target market is not always easy. There are several barriers to your prospects understanding your offer. Your task is to find out what they are and address them.
Why Prospects May have Difficulty Understanding Your Offer
Your offer may be difficult to understand. Even though you are describing your offer very clearly, there may still be barriers to understanding. Where you have a specialist market, it is possible your prospects will understand your offer. It doesn’t matter if other people don’t because they are not your prospective market.
You may have difficulty because you approach a problem from a unique perspective. This can mean your prospects make assumptions and read your offer according to those assumptions. So, they may have difficulty grasping your unique perspective.
Again, you may have an offer that addresses a problem many people have but do not recognise as a problem. So, many people who are overweight do not see it as a problem. You will need to persuade them not only that they are overweight but also it is a problem they need to take seriously.
And of course, you may find your explanations are not compelling for one reason or another. You may provide too little or too much information, poorly expressed, too technical or too simple. You may inadvertently put people off by expressing something that has a negative impact. A common mistake is to attempt to market your offer on features, neglecting its benefits.
How to Help Prospects Understand Your Offer
Be clear about the distinction between features and benefits. If your offer is technically complex, does your prospect really need all the detail? They are going to pay you for your knowledge of the technical complexities. Initially everyone will want to know the benefits and that’s where you should start.
Some customers will want a lot of technical detail, while others won’t. Be prepared if they ask and have technical explanations to hand. But usually, even those who ask are not seeking all the details. They are most likely seeking reassurance you understand what you are doing for them and how they can make best use of it.
Use case studies where prospects may have difficulty grasping your offer. A story may be more effective than a theoretical account. You can back up your story with testimonials, providing social proof.
Illustrations, diagrams, tables and statistics may help convey information more effectively than a written account. Of course, it depends on what your offer is. A product is something you can photograph whilst a service may be harder to convey visually.
Where you have a lot of information to impart, remember marketing is educational; there is a significant overlap between marketing and education. If your marketing material includes ideas your prospects can apply immediately, it will enhance your offer’s credibility. These are the ideas behind the product launch.
Which Media Should You Use to Communicate Information?
We have far more media available to us today to communicate information about our offers and so it is important to think about the best ways you have to market your offer.
If you market locally, you can meet prospects and explain your offer, picking up when things are unclear and answering questions as they come up. This may be the best way to market a complex offer. However, you still have to find your prospects and persuade them to meet you. Also, this can be more difficult if they are too far away for you to meet face-to-face. Skype and similar services, can be almost as effective as meeting face-to-face.
Some Other Options
- A single sales page on a website or in a letter. Paper-based marketing is rare these days; a few years ago we all received several long sales letters a week. Most long sales letters are found online these days and they are still an effective marketing approach. Structure the letter properly and know how to use it online. People who understand the benefits are actually likely to read a relevant long sales letter, so don’t knock it. Think of the times you have read a long sales letter and how you responded to it.
- I would not normally send a long sales letter by email; a short email with a link to a long sales page is probably more effective. Once the reader is on the web page, they are more likely to respond by signing up to your letter. If they are on your email list, you can keep track of whether they open your email and follow the link to your website.
- Video and audio can convey a lot of information effectively. Normally a 10 minute video is ample. I find very short videos, especially if there are a lot of them, somewhat irritating. Longer videos can work but you need more experience to convey a compelling idea over perhaps 25 minutes or longer. If you want to go for length, it may be worth considering audio. Some people will listen in the car or out jogging and so be able to set aside the time.
- White papers, DVDs and books – are physical means of getting your ideas across. There are online equivalents of these and they are worth considering as less expensive alternatives. An ebook for example might be all you need to find the space to explain your offer. However, physical media can be compelling in their own right.
Conclusion
You will note this is a mix of online and physical resources. Remember, the Internet is relatively recent and many marketers are still experimenting with approaches to getting their message across. So, join in the experiments and persist until you find an approach that works for you.
How have you successfully marketed a complex idea? Are there ideas you have struggled to market effectively?