Harshberger

The most effective marketing strategy is to educate the customer about why your product or service is the best value. Lowest cost is rarely an indicator in the success of a product or service. “Value” sells because it provides the best return on a customer’s investment.

Simply put, marketing provides useful information that lets your customers know you understand their needs and provides them potential solutions.

But you can’t help them understand your products or services unless you first understand their needs. In other words, you can’t start building your pitch about why your new “widget” is the best thing on the market until you understand the reasons why people buy widgets.

Here are some questions to ponder about your potential future customers:

• What are they trying to achieve by purchasing this item or service?
• How would they prefer this item or service delivered?
• How will this item or service be utilized to help them achieve their goals?
• How can your item or service provide better value than the competition?

The tough part is convincing your prospects to agree with you that your widgets are the best. This can be difficult because in this age of the Internet, traditional marketing mediums such as radio, TV, print advertisements and celebrity statements are becoming less effective.

That can, however, be good news for small and mid-size companies, as the web has somewhat leveled the playing field. Formerly, only big companies could afford to buy influential testimonials and frequent advertising. Today, however, blogs, online forums and other web-based marketing are the great equalizers. Take any product and search for it online. You will find several comments indicating the marketplace perception of that brand. The customer is now the marketer instead of (or in addition to being) the one being marketed to!

By employing online marketing techniques strategically, you can make a big splash on a limited budget. With the rise of social media, ingenuity is becoming more important than dollars. And it’s been proven that consumers respond better to engaging dialogue than to expensive broadcasting. This type of marketing has come to be known as “inbound marketing.”

Effective inbound marketing provides enough useful information to your prospective customer base that they seek you out. Your company becomes the recognized expert in your field. Inbound marketing is welcome marketing, providing free, useful information about a potential customer’s issue and then offering great solutions. Traditional marketing is often viewed as invasive, focused on price or product features, distributed to a mass audience, hoping some of the noise finds its mark.

Now with the never-ending array of TV commercials, emails and print ads, you need to find a way of reaching your customer that isn’t “lost in the noise.” Having them seek you out is by far the best return on your investment. You may have less traffic to your website or office, but the traffic you do receive will be much better qualified and knowledgeable about your product or service.

Martin Harshberger is the founder and president of Measurable Results LLC and the author of “Bottom Line Focus.” He has executive management experience in Fortune 500 companies, as well as start-ups and mid-sized organizations. For more information on Martin, call 662-844-9088, email martin@bottomlinecoach.com or visit www.bottomlinecoach.com.