Selling on price is a race to the bottom – and your company, your product deserves so much more.
When you rely on having the lowest price in order to make a sale, you’re really saying that the value of the product is lower than your competitors, that you don’t really believe in it.
In reality, what you’re missing is an understanding of your product or service’s VALUE – or maybe you’ve been in the game so long that while you understand the value, you’ve given up trying to communicate that value, and here you are.
However you got here, let’s agree that today marks a new start, yes?
Step One: Determine your audience
If it seems weird to you to be starting to price yourself appropriately by first looking at your buyers, I get it. We’ve been taught that if we have the right product, the right audience will find us. That might have worked a long time ago, but it was never the most effective or efficient way to gain sales success.
If you know your audience inside and out, from demographics (who they are) to psychographics (what they love, hate, do, etc) then you can start matching what you sell to what they already need. The trick is to balance your clientele between three types of clients: your MONEY AVATAR (wholesalers, investors, partners, large scale buyers, government; those who pay you well for less work), your SOUL AVATAR (retail customers, smaller buyers; those who light you up to work with them, even though they buy less per purchase), and your YOU-vatar (do this exercise on yourself if you can’t figure out the other two, you know how to attract people just like you by analyzing what marketing works on you and duplicating it.)
Once you have each of your avatars’ demographics (name, age, where they live, how much money they make, if they’re married, kids, how they vote) as well as their main psychographics (what they love, who they admire, what they hate, where they find their information, what makes their job/life suck, what makes their job/life amazing, their main complaints and main joys) then you’re ready to start crafting your message to them.
Step Two: Get in their heads
You can craft your marketing to give them the solutions to the problems they have (and even those they didn’t know they had) and you can do it in such a way that price is no longer a concern, because they understand your value.
We all know the features of what we sell. The recipes, the technology, the training, the school of thought: the HOW. And we love to talk about the HOW. The thing about the HOW is…nobody cares. We don’t want an education on your product, we want to know if it works, and if it will work for us. That’s where benefits and value messaging comes in.
Look at your three avatars. Guaranteed they have different pain points, so youll have to do this exercise three separate times in order to get the right messages to put out on the right platforms. If you try to address them all, your messages will be so lengthy and convoluted that no one will be delighted by them. Pick one or two specific problems your product or service solves: do you bring joy? do you keep us out of jail (bless you, accountants of the world!)? do you make life easier or better or someone’s job more efficient? Think of how your product impacts the lives of the users. Think of how your service solves problems in the real life of your clients.
Then think how the solving of that problem makes their whole life better. That, people, is where the money is. That is called value.
Imagine you make and sell an organic handmade shampoo.
Current, feature-based messaging:
“Made with Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Vegetable Organic Aloe Vera), Cocamidopropyl Betaine (Natural Origin (Eco Cert), Surfactant), Glycol Distearate (Vegetable Surfactant), Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate (Vegetable/ Synthetic Surfactant), Aqua, Laureth-4 (Vegetable/ Synthetic Surfactant), and Citrus Aurantium Bergamia Peel Oil”
NOBODY CARES.
Benefit-based messaging:
Get the shiny hair you’ve always dreamed of – and save the planet too!
OK, I WANT TO KNOW MORE…
Value-based messaging:
Daily confidence comes from amazing hair (and protecting the Earth) every single day – guaranteed!
GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!
Step Three: Get in front of them
Now that you know who you’re talking to AND what they want to hear from you, all you have to do now is get in front of them! Start hanging out regularly on the sites or referral networks they frequent, and check out the visuals your competitors are using. Start analyzing the language your audience uses and mirror it back to them.
Communicate your brand through visuals while focusing your text on the benefit and value messages and you will never sell on discounting again. For real.