With any marketing campaign essential aspects exist that you need to consider. You need to know your customers want. Read it again. What do they want? Not what do you provide. Your customers don't want your products or services. They want to gain a specific feeling they get after buying and using your products or services. This is important to remember because in any advertising you do you want to emphasize the feelings produced by using your product instead of talking about what your product is and how it works. Play on the negative and positive in one shot. Create pain and then offer them pleasure with your product or service.

For example, Proactiv plays on the feelings of rejection, sadness, and lack of self confidence that we feel when we have bad skin. They show these depressing pictures and have customers share horrible experiences. As you watch you start to feel really sad especially if you can relate. You may even start to cry. Then Proactiv changes direction. With their product you will find happiness. Now those same people have great clear skin, are getting married, losing weight, accomplishing great things all from using Proactiv. This is GREAT marketing.

Another important aspect is to keep communicating with buyers and prospective buyers. Value the relationships you have. Products are products but your customer service is what is going to keep your business growing. Most people won't buy from you the first time but make sure you do not blow them off. Use them. Ask them why they haven't purchased and offer them a gift if they help you market better. Ask past customers if there is anything you can improve, were they satisfied, and will they buy again? Make them feel as if they are helping you.

One of the most overlooked aspects of advertising is to make purchasing simple. If you are advertising in print don't make it hard for someone to request information or purchase your product. If I see something in a magazine I do not want to write in for more information and wait six weeks to get it. Offer a phone number or website. Tell people exactly how to buy and make it easy. If you are directing them to your website make purchasing easily accessible. You will lose customers if they have to go through many levels to purchase your products. Make sure you also offer different ways to pay for items. Make sure you can take credit cards.

Offer a guarantee such as a money back or satisfaction guarantee. This will put any doubt out of the picture. You want people to be happy to deal with you and guess what, not everything is going to be perfect. You don't want people taking advantage of this but you also do not want someone to feel they have to spend money and if the product or service fails, is not what they thought they purchased, are unhappy, or is flawed in some way that they are stuck and their money is down the drain. How many of us are much more willing to make a purchase that have some sort of guarantee to it? I know I am.

Be careful not to overload on advertising. What I mean by this is do not advertise too much. If you are advertising your business then stick to that. If you are advertising a feature product don't throw others into the mix. It will confuse the customer as to what you are really offering and they will end up not purchasing. Advertise one product, service, or concept at a time. Remember, keep it simple and tell them how to buy. Don't give them too many options. If you are running a print ad give them a phone number and if they are on a website tell them how to purchase now. The longer and more complicated the steps are the more likely you are not going to get the sale.

Up selling is a great strategy and one you can advertise. Lets say you are marketing a feature product. At the end of your advertisement offer a "package deal". For example, if your focus product is a lipstick at the very end of the advertisement offer a package on the lipstick and lip liner that would equal 10% off the lipstick. Make sure what you are up selling is related to the product being mentioned. Don't try to up sell Tupperware if your feature product is make-up.

Copyright Tanya Sarlanis 2005

Excerpt from Marketing Strategies for Wahms and Home Businesses

http://www.marketingforwahms.com