So you've got a product and you want to sell it to people via
the internet. Join the club. Everyone wants to sell stuff via
the internet and many do, but how many of the customers are
truly happy with their purchases? The internet makes it easy
for internet users to communicate with other internet users. It
also make it easy for your customers to come back to you
regardless of they are in the world.
The key to good marketing is customer satisfaction. What happens
if you buy a product and you find out that it isn't as good as
you thought it would be? You are one unhappy customer, you are
hardly likely to tell your friends that it was a good thing to
buy, you're unlikely to buy again from that supplier and you may
even return the product for a refund. But what happens if the
product actually turns out to be better than you thought it
would be? You're unlikely to go asking for a refund, you're
more likely to buy again from that supplier and you might tell
your friends that it was a good purchase. If you market your
products via the internet, word-of-mouth recommendations are
your 'bridge' to potential customers in the non-internet world.
Underselling is a tricky tightrope to walk. Of course you need
to tell your prospective customers about the benefits of your
product to arouse their interest in the product in the first
place. If you're not going to tell prospective customers about
certain features of your product you need to decide carefully
what those features will be. The mere mention of the extra
supercool whatdyacallit might be enough to grab the prospects
attention, and yes, you may lose a few potential sales by not
mentioning it in the first place, but this is your ace card. Do
you really want to throw it in so soon? The unmentioned
feature(s) might be subtle like the overall design quality or an
extraordinarily good after-sales service, or it might be
something that adds a whole new functionality to the product, a
kind of secret bonus.
This method works best with a 'try before you buy' approach. The
customer's discovery of the free bonus means the product will be
able to sell itself. It is the element of surprise that does the
work. 'Try before you buy' will work with just about any
product. It might involve producing a cut-down, free sample of
the product or allocating a series of demonstration models for
people to 'test-drive' or it might even involve making a
provisional sale 'on approval'. Of course, the product should
stand-up to everything that has been said about it beforehand
but the surprise bonus is the clincher.
People rarely buy something for just one reason. The more
reasons they have to buy your product, the more likely they are
to buy it. At first, in respect of an 'off-the-shelf' sale, this
might sound like a contradiction. If giving more reasons to buy
is more likely to get a sale, then why keep them secret? The
answer is customer satisfaction, free word-of-mouth advertising
and repeat sales. Unfortunately, the world is not a perfect
place. Everybody has different tastes and dislikes. There is
bound to be something about your product that somebody doesn't
like, perhaps it's the exact shade of green or the way it goes
'snap' when you press it in a particular way. Here, your secret
bonus can come to the rescue, restoring the balance by
cancelling out the nasty bit, and drawing your customer to focus
on the advantages of your product rather than the disadvantages.
So next time you are telling your prospective customers how good
your product is, forget to tell them about how it is guaranteed
to enhance their love life. Let them find out for themselves. If
your product doesn't do this, then perhaps it should!
About the Author
Ian Tragen
mailto:wpn@page-1.com
MiRaGe Audio Visual Media
http://www.mirage1.u-net.com