Why Hard Selling is so uncool these days
Posted by Thomas Hoi 
So here is my beef…
I become a customer…which I am very often within the online world, and I am looking to buy myself a new camera.
Pretty cliche, right?
Well, it is the truth. With the US dollar being close to par with the Canadian one right now, us Canadians can get excellent deals by buying US versus buying Canadian. In fact, things like clothes are close to 50% cheaper down there, with items like SLR digital cameras being close to 25% off.
For all of you crafty marketers out there, now is a great time to market ALL products to us Canadians, as we are going online by the fist-fulls, looking for great deals.
However, don’t fall into the trap that I saw many marketers falling into when I tried to buy a camera online.
I got turned off…pissed off…and frankly almost decided to go down to Costco to buy my camera as a result of the type of “hard sell” marketing that I saw taking place!
I understood the benefits by reading these sites, however I was not able to commit to buying any camera based on what was on all of these websites because their marketing styles frustrated me as a consumer.
What were they doing that was so bad?
First off, they were feature heavy. They loved to tell you all about the features. To me, and amateur photographer at best, I would need a professional beside me to translate terms outside the normal MP, Digital Zoom, etc to really understand what they were talking about.
Their marketing message went something like this:
……
……
…… and more features I didn’t understand.Oh ya, this is the best camera, see these testimonials
……
……
……and more rubbish.
Don’t forget to buy from my site, my name is BEST CAMERA DEALS.
……
……so let me get this straight, your first name is BEST, last name is DEALS, middle name CAMERA.
There are a few major problems with this page. First, I don’t understand what the heck many of the features were, and many beginner’s buying a starter SLR Camera would be in the same boat. Features mean nothing to a potential customer, benefits are everything.
Secondly, I don’t care about company produced testimonials…they mean nothing to me these days. I want first-hand reviews.
Lastly, hiding behind the website, or at least not offering me a pen name makes it difficult for me to relate to anything the website was saying. Notice how I said “website was saying”… that is because that is exactly how it felt. I would prefer someone to be speaking to me versus a website.
…and I know this is how must customers feel in this day in age.
It would have been nice if they said stuff like..
It takes the same quality as a $5,000 camera, the only difference being in some of the small lighting features that you wouldn’t use anyways, unless you have an assistant with you. It works excellent in all outdoor lightening situations and is excellent for high quality, detailed scenery photographs.
This is a usable piece of information. This allows me to quickly say, hey, good thing I read this, because I don’t need to spend money on a more expensive camera. I am just going to be using it for a trip to Europe and will probably only take pictures of scenery.
Now that makes me much closer to buying this camera than someone stating that it has XXX feature, XXX zoom, and XXX lightening options.
OK, I have gotten the benefits rant out of the way. However…
Outlining the Benefits is NOT ENOUGH THOUGH!
You know you here the old saying “sell the benefits, not the features”?
I have even said this to others in the past, but as I think about it, selling the benefits no longer the answer to the entire requirement of the consumer.
The person selling the product should be selling themselves as a person should they not?
Consumers are damn smart these days. Smarter than they have ever been. I fall victim to this every time I buy something. I can spend days researching online before I make a purchase, whereas prior to the last couple of years even, I was a much quicker (and I guess to a certain degree, irrational) consumer.
The main thing people look for is:
Advice from People.
Not companies. People are real. People have opinions. People say when things suck and say when things are awesome.
Marketers often times don’t.. If you sound like a marketer, you sound like a newspaper ad. If you sound like a person, you sound like a friend. People buy from friends advice.
I will take an online example here to explain my theory.
Selling an Acne Cream to Someone That Needs Acne Cream
Should be a pretty easy sell right?
I mean, this is someone that knows they have acne and need a solution to help them out, yet a lot of Internet marketers still have much difficulty walking this person from the “already informed” stage to the “buyer” stage.
Hellooo…they want to buy. Sell yourself as somebody that is credible, someone that is real, and someone that can help.
Not a robotic “Y-O-U M-U-S-T B-U-Y” sales pitch.
Before I get into this, let’s analyze one of the leading acne products out there, Proactiv. I am going to create a list of the features and the benefit translations:
Features:
- has acne fighting ingredients
- shipped within 5 days
- comes with 2 free gifts
- gets an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5 by consumers
- moisturizes your skin
- guarantee to work or your money back
- Comes in a 2oz bottle
Benefits:
- makes you face look flawless to the human eye
- start removing acne before next weekend
- has extra gifts that will make your skin oil free
- real people, with real acne issues love it
- makes your skin feel and look like porcelain after
- it works for most people, but if it doesn’t, there is no risk in trying
- comes in a travel size bottle so you can take it with you on vacation
Don’t sell the solution, sell the face!
You heard it straight from the horses mouth. People want the face, they don’t give a rats about the bottle it comes in, the ingredients, the gifts, etc…they ultimately buy the product to get the desired result, which in this case is “clear skin on their face”.
OK, let’s start off a good sales message here touching on some of the benefits:
I know how you feel. I have acne. I still get it, even tough I used Proactiv, but it is way more manageable. I don’t get funny looks any more, and I don’t get snide eye comments about me being a pimple-face.
If you want help, I suggest you try Proactive. It carries the most powerful stuff for fighting acne in the world, but it doesn’t burn your face off like some of the other products out there. It won’t end acne altogether, but it will make it manageable and allow you to sustain a clear, soft face when you are using it.
One thing I do think you should always consider when buying is whether or not the company guarantees the product. Proactiv does which really made the difference between me buying and not buying. They understand that it won’t work on some of the more severe cases and this is why they have this in place.
Is it worth a shot? I will leave this up to you as you are the one spending the money. However, my experience and research says that you will benefit from it. You will know right away if it starts working, and I believe the company will ship the product by next week, so if you do have an engagement or event coming up where you want to show off your new skin, this would be a good opportunity.
If you have any questions about Proactiv, you can feel free to contact me and I will be more than happy to give you a helping hand.
What do you think?
This is much better than some authority or website telling you that it rates 4.9 out of 5.0 and comes in a oval shaped bottle which is 2oz in size and it has a 60 day money back guarantee. Oh ya, it has this stuff in it called Benzoyl Peroxide.
People like a realistic, personal approach to being sold on anything. Saying something is the best in the world raises red flags. Hiding behind a website and writing as though you are an authority can raise red flags. And outlining just features is simply not effective.
Be real and make your selling strategy a soft sell, not a hard and abrasive sell.
Happy selling,
Kyle
**Side Note: If you can’t give a personal opinion because you haven’t tried the product, then you will have to take a different approach. Use a friend or someone you know of as an example.
“I know that someone near and dear to my heart had acne growing up and the impact it can have. They use to vent to me about the emotional pain they endured from the teasing and weird looks.” etc…
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