Understanding what motivates people to buy will help you improve your sales strategy. Market motivators, or the reasons why customers are motivated to make purchases, is what drives sales. In this blog post I examine why some products succeed at their sales strategies, and how you can use them to grow sales in your own business.
1. Products succeed because they understand buyer behaviour
Some products fall flat while some take off. Why?
Buyer behaviour (or what makes people spend money, and on what types of products) may explain why.
For example, let’s say your business is to sell a mobile app. You do your market research, you’ve figured out that there is a market interested in the app, you design the product, and you promote your sales launch.
But it doesn’t sell.
You do more market research and gather user feedback. On further examination you realize that it doesn’t solve a problem for your customer, nor does it fulfil an unmet need.
Not only does a product need to be well designed, but it also has to be easy to use, with features that differentiates it from your competition. In a saturated market, it is harder to develop a highly innovative product than it is to develop your own unique brand. A unique brand is what drives sales and motivates your market to buy your product.
Sociologists, psychologists, and economists have built models of buyer behaviour to explain why people buy. One oft-quoted example is the Rolex watch. Its functionality is the same as any watch, yet people will splurge on Rolex watches for the status and prestige conveyed by possessing one.
Understanding what buyers need and desire are key to implementing strategies in your marketing that will encourage them to fulfil these needs and desires.
2. How can you use market motivators to drive sales?
If you’re a small business, you might not have an army of sales marketers backing you up like the big corporations. You might not have a big budget, either.
But it is still possible to strategically use marketing to drive sales. Since you did your research and you know what motivates your market, the next step would be to craft your sales strategy.
This is where it will help to understand marketing principles, which include knowing your pricing strategy, distribution channels, and marketing strategy.
In terms of promotion, the process of setting up buzz, excitement, and hype will go far to ensure a successful sales launch.
Promotions can be accomplished through word of mouth, referrals, traditional and digital advertising, and social media.
Some sellers run Facebook ad campaigns to build excitement for their product and to boost sales. With Facebook ads, it’s possible to target Facebook users in a specific niche, ensuring that your ad gets seen by the right viewers, and that your ad spend has a high return on investment (ROI).
A successful sales strategy also prompts potential customers to beat their indecision and procrastination. This can be done by implementing urgency and scarcity. People procrastinate when spending money especially if it’s a large amount of money.
That’s why the words “limited time offer” (urgency) and “get them before they’re gone” (scarcity) are used so often. Time-limited promotions can boost sales during holidays or periods of slow sales growth. Setting up a waitlist also shows your customer that your product or service is in high demand.
3. Know your ideal customer profile and market motivators
Knowing your ideal customer profile is essential to understanding market motivation and what drives sales.
Your target demographic will have specific wants and needs that are different from another demographic.
You might think that your product is for everyone, or you’re hesitant to limit yourself to a niche. But the truth is, you can’t sell to everyone, and it’s not useful to spend your paid ad dollars targeting all audiences. Your efforts will be wasted if you try to target the wrong audience.
Focus your efforts for a greater ROI by knowing how your customer behaves, their likes and dislikes, and their habits. Get very detailed when creating your ideal customer profile. For example, what are the types of sales channels and distribution that is used most often by your niche? Is it online or brick and mortar stores? Make your products easily available through these channels.
Finally, knowing your ideal customer profile will help you make decisions about how to market your product in a cost-effective way.
4. Know how to handle customer objections
Customer objections are expected when you are pitching a sales proposal. You may see your product or service as a benefit to your customer, but they see it as a huge risk. What if the product doesn’t work? What if they don’t reap the benefits?
Lower their perceived risks by talking them through their objections, asking questions, and presenting solutions.
It helps to add some statistics, graphs, and charts in your slide deck to back up your claims.
Once you have an effective sales pitch, this will help to drive sales in your business.
5. The timing must be right to motivate your market to buy
Most often, sales are seasonal and can have peaks or troughs depending on the timing. For example, sales of gym memberships see an uptick at the beginning of the year when people make new years’ resolutions to get fit.
Also consider the current economic climate, which can tell you a lot about market conditions.
Timing is especially important if you are in the tech industry. You don’t want to launch a product that is misaligned with current innovations and technologies.
Technology always moves fast, and if you’re in the tech space, you might always be running to catch up.
Furthermore, it’s not reasonable to launch a product if there is no demand for it.
Consumer demand is what drives sales.
Take advantage of opportunities though be wise about it as you don’t want to just ride the wave of a fad that will pass in a few months.
Keep an eye on industry trends in order to stay relevant.
6. Keep repeat customers happy to drive more sales
When a good relationship is established between the seller and customer, this will motivate the customer to return for repeat business. Repeat business drives sales, all without having to nurture new leads.
You don’t want to just make a single sale and never have your customer return for more.
It takes less effort and less money to make a sale to a repeat customer than it is to find new ones.
To do this, have great customer service. If you’re a smaller operation, you may want to hire virtual assistants to answer phones or emails.
This will also help to cultivate customer testimonials which you can use in your social media or website.
Excellent customer service is what accelerates the growth of your brand by word of mouth and helps drive sales.
Market motivators are one of the key factors that drive sales. Knowing what motivates your customer to purchase will already take you a few steps ahead in your sales strategy.