Hey friends,

People don't like to be sold to.

The sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll get better at marketing.

You may be thinking, but I want to sell them something. How can I market to them if people don't want to be sold to?

It's simple. At the end of the day, you are solving a problem that customers have, otherwise your business wouldn't really be serving any purpose.

Instead of marketing to people (trying to get them to buy), you instead want to speak to them as someone trying to help them solve their problem.

The ways this fits into the awareness stages we mentioned earlier, is that you need to speak to them differently depending on their awareness stage. This can be split into 3 main sections:

1. Education

2. Prospecting

3. Closing

👩‍🏫 Education

This is where you provide information or educational content related to your product or service without actually pitching your product or service. For example, imagine you are in charge of marketing for a car repair shop. Instead of just posting on social media about the services you offer, you can reach customers that are unaware that they even need your services by posting about the importance of rotating your tires, or how the quality of your oil changes can increase the lifespan of your car. In short, by providing valuable information that either educates (or entertains), you can reach people that you never could have, since you're providing value upfront and people find it useful.

⛏️ Prospecting

This is where you actually start to mention your product in a smart way and try to find potential customers (people that are aware of the problem you're solving). You do this by mentioning the USP's (unique selling points) of the product or service of course, but you first need to gain trust through reciprocity, social proof, authority etc. If we take the car repair shop example, this is where we can start to mention the kinds of services you offer (oil changes, windshield repair etc.) and also use influence strategies to get them to learn more (show testimonials of happy customers, mention the convenience of your service, the expertise of your staff etc.)

🤝 Closing

The final stage is just about selling. However, you only want to close customers once they go through either educational messages you provide or prospecting content that influences their buying decision (unless they are already ready to buy). This is where you might give them a special price, use scarcity (offers that expire), or some other incentive to get them to close.

Your Next Steps

• Read an article I published earlier on Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (with a Digital Twist)

Next Up

Stay tuned for the next edition in which we'll go over the channels you can use to practically reach people.