Try A New Angle on Selling Your Value Proposition

The tendency of companies when marketing their products is to focus on the features or components which are included.

But generating business growth requires reaching beyond product features or service elements to what affects customers in their daily lives (work or personal). Framing the benefits in that mindset is what we (AftertheNet) do for clients on a daily basis and  companies can greatly benefit from that approach.

Using a pain based selling approach, you can engage potential prospects who are not connecting your offerings to their critical problems.  Key goals are met by this approach:

• Gaining access to new segments which you have not previously had strong presence with
• Connecting the most emotional / critical pain areas of your prospects
• Increasing the value perception of your products

Here’s an example:

A technical training program for IT managers is offering courses about building Custom Content Management Systems.  In the past, the training organization has marketed to companies which currently use or are planning to use  CMS’s.

The focus has been around increasing the effectiveness or extending the capabilities of the CMS.  There’s a big missed opportunity here: direct marketing to the IT managers.  IT managers are always under pressure from the threat of new technology, the implementation of hosted technology (which don’t require internal IT) or outsourcing of the IT function.

This disempowerment creates both a morale and negotiation problem for IT managers.  An advance Customized CMS course can be marketed to IT Managers as a way to influence the direction of their company’s technology that is good for the company but also favours them in building their importance in the organization.

Once a custom CMS is implemented, the dependency level of the company on the IT manager with expertise and direct knowledge of the custom system will have increased exponentially.  This value to an IT manager can be tens of thousands of dollars of increased pay annually.  Hence greater inquiries to your company from IT managers for their own self interest.

These types of quantifiable association to salary negotiation power is an important marketing angle for training companies to reach companies whose management doesn’t see value in a particular program.

Direct access to a potential student’s personal career goals can play a big role in increasing the value perception and interest level in a particular program.