The days of nameless, face less customers are over. With the advent of social media and technology, it is clear that we need to focus on our customers. The technology is just a tool to enable that focus, but too many businesses forget how important people are. They forget that people are our potential customers, and people have feelings, emotions, desires, wants, needs, and it is not all about the bottom line. Remember, how you treat people, will definitely affect your bottom line.
1. Train Your People Correctly – Whether it is your contractors, or employees, it is very important that they get the right training, when they promote your products and services. In the training, stress the fact on how to focus on the people, rather than the money.
2. Educate Your Audience – Take the time, through your content marketing, to educate your audience about your offers. Remember, by educating your audience you need to focus on them, including their wants, and their needs.
3. Keep Studying Your Audience – While the demographics of your audience will, for the most part stay the same, their values do change over time. Therefore, it is imperative that you keep tabs on your audience, so that you can be aware of what is changing for them.
4. Motivate Your Team – When you focus on people, that includes your team. Whether they are employees, contractors, affiliates, or colleagues, motivating them to put people first is as easy as showing them how it feels to be first.
5. Concentrate on Repeat Sales – When you already have a customer it is a lot easier getting them to buy something else, or if you have consumable products, to buy again and again. All you have to do is focus on them, and their needs, and always be there for them. Tell them about what you are doing, and what you have to offer them.
6. Understand Your Product from the Customer’s Perspective – If you are not in your audience, it can be difficult to “get it”. But, by surveying your customers to find out how they feel about your product, it is important to ask them and listen to them. Do not forget to really listen to your customers, even if they complain.
7. Use Video – One way to really connect to people is to let them see you via video. If you do not want them to see “you”, you can hire spokes people to do the videos for you. But, if you are going solo, it has to be you. You can do short videos that let them feel like they know you, because they saw your face and “looked into your eyes”.
8. Use Stories to Resonate and Empathize with Your Audience – Collect success stories from your customers. Use stories of others who found solutions through your products. Tell your own story, because you are a customer of your own products.
9. Concentrate on User Experiences – This is another issue you need to survey your customers on. Just put yourself into their shoes, as you go through the entire buying process. Ask people how they feel going through the checkout process, and what they think when they visit your site. Use advanced analytics to find out what people do once they get to your site.
10. Remove Risk – Like a lot of things in life, we do not want to take unnecessary risks. If you can remove risks from your audience by offering a 30, 60, or even a 90-day return policy, you are going to help them make the purchase. You can be more generous with returns if your product is digital.
Focusing on people to boost sales simply requires you to know your audience, keep studying your audience, and try to put yourself in their shoes. If you are not sure what they think, ask them.
