“I ended up buying the right one.”
“But didn’t you say the other one had more pixels?”
“Yes, but this one won me over in the end.”
We sell PBX systems, often in the cloud—and the cloud isn’t something that you can touch.
But let’s talk in terms of tangible products that you can touch with your hands. That way, I can explain where to focus your marketing so you can sell more and earn more.
Always remember that we don’t judge products with our hands or eyes, but with our heads.
As marketers and salespeople, we usually assume that customers choose one product over another based on quality and aesthetics.
But that’s not the whole story. Our eyes and hands can send negative feedback to our brains, but if we fall in love with something—or someone—nothing can stop us.
They say “love is blind,” and the expression works well in business, too.
Marketing (done well) brings the product from the hands to the head
To sell a product, you have to win over your customers’ minds, not their hands.
A success story works infinitely better than a 50-page catalogue full of tables and numbers.
After all, telling stories is the way our brains are wired to learn. Just think of the fables we tell children!
The narrative around a product is what wins you, customers. It’s what makes them fall in love.
Synthesis is that miraculous shift where the brain is able to make a decision
Let’s say you have to choose between two mobile phones. If you limit yourself to looking at their technical characteristics, you’ll never decide, because mobile phones are all too similar.
You’ll keep looking at those spec sheets, stuck in your analysis.
And then, a sort of miracle will happen.
You’ll say to yourself: “They’re just about identical, but I like this one more,” or “I trust this one more.” And you’ll make your choice.
Synthesis lets us solve problems that we can’t solve analytically.
Position your product in the customer’s mind
When we talk about positioning, we mean positioning the product in your customers’ minds, not in a table of technical details.
So how do we do it?
- Take the product out of your customers’ hands. Make them imagine it, desire it. The physical product is the last thing that the customer should see and touch.
Imagine a desktop phone that lets you monitor your company’s phone activity in real-time, with a simple, customizable dashboard.
- Talk about what your product does, not how it’s made.
SuperVision is the managers’ desktop video phone that allows you to monitor missed calls, response time, and the SLA (Service Level Agreement).
- Use simple metrics to talk about the advantages or the problems that your product solves.
SuperVision lets you reduce missed calls by 40% with continuous monitoring of your company’s phone activity.
SuperVision’s dashboard lets you access data in real-time.
SuperVision lets you reduce your service customers’ wait time by 23% with real-time phone traffic monitoring.
- And finally, just to please your customers, add the technical details of your product.
High-quality plastic, aluminium, and an 8” HD screen make SuperVision a true premium terminal—ideal for company executives.
First the stories, and then all the rest
Interview your happy clients and create your own book of success stories. Make your marketing efforts more fruitful by leading with these stories, not your catalogue.
The time for tables and technical specs comes later.
If you tell the right stories first, the tables won’t be the only thing guiding your customers to their decision. They might be holding a few sheets of paper in their hands, but the desire will have already been planted in their minds.