Strategic Marketing( 2)
Read Strategic Marketing Part 1 by Tony Ajah
Marketing and the buyers’ personalities
As people differ, so are the strategies for reaching them. Our ability to resolve this earlier would give you access into their ‘comfort-zone’ – the zone where every buying decisions are made.
To achieve success in marketing, you must develop what I tagged as ‘personality flexibility’. And flexibility is your ability and willingness to adapt to the situation, as well as to the individuals with whom you are marketing your product-services to. Without it, you might likely be less effective to positively influence your buyer(s). This is what I mean by that: if your prospect cannot buy your product-service standing, don’t try selling it to him standing up. This idea, which I called ‘market-mirroring’, works like magic. Has it not happened to you? When you are in a hurry you want anybody coming to see you at that time to hurry up; the same is true when you are not. Whenever we move at people’s pace and frequency, we tend to get them to our side!
A pretty understanding of who is buying from offering helps you to build the right platform to achieving your purpose. You short-change yourself whenever you don’t know who you are marketing to, and that’s one of the main reasons only few marketers ever closed a deal. But knowing who you are marketing your product-service to sets the clear tone for the rest of the transaction to reach a conclusive end. Whatever it might cost you, endeavour to know appreciably your buyers make-up. For instance, his personality and communication style, and then channel your product-service to meeting his unique needs, or better still his uniqueness. As we are different, so are our needs, tastes, desire, expectations, drives and wants. And they are part of us, and shouldn’t be played down upon whenever we relate with people, especially during selling or marketing of any kind.
Be a ‘market psychologist’
In psychoanalysis, if you allow a person to talk about himself freely, he will eventually blurt out what he is really thinking about at that moment. I have noticed that psychologists spend greater part of their counselling time listening. Little wonder why they provide solution to whatever bugs their clients most of the time. You too can do the same in marketing. Always listen to your buyers. And when you do that, you create the kind of environment that makes the buyer feels comfortable to express himself or herself openly and honestly. At this point, you can know how to help them better.
Let me give you some clue: ask enough intelligent questions, and listen closely enough to answers they would give, in order to understand the most intense need of a particular prospect in which your product-service could satisfy. In other words, question skilfully and listen carefully. Closed ears are closed opportunities – we miss opportunities when we fail to listen.
About the Author
Tony Ajah is a business growth strategist, and the Principal Strategist, TA strategic Solutions, a Lagos-based firm that is into business growth and development.Contact email: [email protected]
