Customers Need To Know That You Understand Their Two "Places"
In the effort to drive online sales, prospects need to know that you understand two key places:
- Where they’ve been
- Where they want to be
The power of this approach is that it connects your with your prospects at their most important level — pain.
Where They’ve Been:
There are several dimensions that describe where a prospect has been. In the context of looking at a product or service, it usually implies a negative “place”:
- difficult situations
- negative emotions
- pain or need areas unmet
- business or personal challenges
- unmet goals
If you study a good sales call or great marketing materials, they inevitably include the effort to connect with the “place” that a prospect has been. Why? Because to build a product which solves a problem, a company needs to understand to a good extent the nature of that problem.
Where they want to be:
Along the same dimensions, there is “place” where prospects are want to be in the context of looking at a product or service. As expected, this a positive “place” which reflects an ideal of some sort with respect to key dimensions like:
- good situations
- positive emotions
- benefit received
- challenges overcome
- goals met
In the effort to convey the “value” of your product, your success will substantially be determined by the prospect connecting your product or service to reaching their desired “place”. Describing credibly how your offering will take them from where they “are” to where they want to be, will create the perception of value which allows for sales to be completed.
This represents a key part of the fundamental perception shift of what your website about. In another article, we’ve discussed the new paradigm that successful online marketing efforts are built on: your website is not about your company or your products, its about your prospects and their needs.
