Have you ever heard that Sam Cooke song about Cupid? You know:
Cupid draw back your bow
And let your arrow go
Straight to my lover’s heart for me-ee-ee.
OK, maybe I’m showing my age a little with Sam Cooke, but in my eyes Cupid must be the god of marketing, because he does two things really well that we could all do better to add horsepower to our marketing and sales efforts:
- Know how to make his customers fall in love and
- Send that message straight to their hearts.
Are you doing these two things well in your business? If not, you could be losing substantial horsepower in your marketing and sales efforts and it’s probably costing you lots of money in both lost sales and wasted marketing dollars.
So let’s break this Cupid thing down a little bit more.
Make sure you have the right love potion
First, does your message speak to the heart of what your prospects and customers really want?
Think for a second about what your customers care about. Do your sales and marketing communications really help them see that you will deliver those benefits?
Let me give you a personal example. Business owners like you are my customers. And what you have told me over and over again is that you want strong, profitable growth for your business and more free time to enjoy the rest of your life. So everything I do in my business is geared toward delivering those benefits and clearly communicating that message directly to you.
Do you communicate clear, customer-focused benefits in your business? If not, one great way you can strengthen your marketing and sales is by getting very clear about the ultimate results your customers want from your services. If you own a painting business, some examples of ultimate results they might be looking for are:
- a more beautiful home;
- a great place to relax and feel comfortable;
- more free time because they didn’t have to do the work themselves;
- protection for their home
- to keep up with or outshine the Joneses next door.
Once you figure out what your customers truly want, then make sure that you clearly express those benefits in every marketing and sales communication you have with your prospects or customers. If you do, you will make it easy for prospective customers to fall in love with you and buy from you.
On the other hand, without a message that speaks directly to the heart of what your target market wants, you can communicate until you’re blue in the face, and it will have little impact because your message isn’t important to them and won’t grab their attention and motivate them to hire you. You will waste marketing dollars and lose sales as a result!
Shoot that arrow straight to their heart
Once you have a message that speaks directly to the needs of your customers, make sure you deliver it directly to their hearts. Look closely at your marketing communication efforts. Are they more like Cupid’s arrow, shot directly to your target market’s heart, or are they more like a shotgun, spreading shots randomly all over the place?
Think about your target customer. How can you reach them in the most direct way possible? Direct mail? Referrals from partners who are also working with your target? Publications targeted to your audience?
If you start with your target audience in mind, you will find many targeted ways to communicate. And the more tightly you target your audience, the better and more cost effective your results will be.
Borrow these 2 ideas from Cupid and grow your business
So if you want to increase the power of your marketing and sales, do like Cupid does: create a relevant message and send it straight to the hearts of your target customers. If you do, the horsepower of your marketing and sales efforts will go way up, the costs will go down and you will close more sales.
