Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Are You Throwing Mud at Your Potential Customers?
The vast majority of beginning businesses online do nothing more than throw mud at their potential customers. Are you guilty of this?

Yeah, I realize you're not standing out on the street tossing globs of gunk at anyone who might be interested in buying your product or service. But if you do what most new businesses do online, you're guilty as charged.

What I'm talking about is a failure to figure out who your customers are and what they're REALLY looking for. When you know them—and I mean their emotional needs, their fears, their uncertainties that lead them to consider buying from you—you can tailor your copywriting to appeal directly to those things that make them say, "Yes!" to your product or service.

If you don't know those things, all you can do is write bland, generic copy devoid of emotional triggers. And when all you write is generic copy—believe me—all you're doing is throwing mud at them and hope that it sticks.

You can't rely on your product or service to sell itself. You can't rely on it to intellectually convince them to buy based on the bare facts that you tell them. You will not get around the basic principle to selling that states: "People buy based on emotion; then they look for rational reasons to support their decision."

You cannot sell without tapping into your potential customers' emotions.

So how do you do that?

Take time to figure out who they are. As much as you'd like to think your product will appeal to everyone, you need to target your MOST LIKELY customers and focus on answering their needs. If you try to be generic enough to not exclude anyone, you'll actually lose the people who are the most likely to buy.

Figure out their age range, their gender, anything in their situation that might influence them to seek out your product or service.

Once you have a good handle on who they are, figure out all of the benefits your product offers them. Not just one or two benefits. Brainstorm the feelings that having your product will give them. Why will they be glad they got it? What emotional needs will it fill for them? Brainstorm dozens of benefits. Ask people who manufacture it. Ask people who have bought it. Ask anyone who has any connection with your product what makes it worth owning.

Think back to a time in your life when you needed a product like the one you sell. What needs did you feel? What desires drove you to buy it?

Don't skim over this. This is essential to your sales.

Then figure out what obstacles in their minds might hold them up from buying. Shipping time? Shipping cost? Breakage? What if it doesn't turn out to be what they expect? Are they sure they can trust your business to treat them fairly?

Think of all the potential roadblocks between them and a sale and make sure you work the answers in at the points where those concerns will arise.

Again, take your time with all of this. If it takes a couple of days to put yourself in your customers' shoes, take that time. The ability you gain to tap directly into their emotional needs will more than pay off.
Jeff