Converting Prospects Into Customers

Most small business owners are challenged when it comes to converting their prospects to customers. This article outlines three simple marketing strategies to help you move prospects into actual paying customers.

Strategy #1: Your Customer's Goals Come Before Yours
The only successful way to approach a potential customer is with the honest desire to understand their problems and needs. The days of the "hard sell" are over. Customers have the ability, via the Web, to control the information that comes to them.

To ensure your customer's goals are met, you simply need to repurpose your main marketing message. Instead of placing the focus on selling, explain how your product or service will make your customer's lives better. Prove it through 3rd party testimonials, free downloadable product guides, tip sheets, and content-based newsletters.

What's wrong with placing the focus on selling? Absolutely nothing! As a business owner, your ultimate goal is to sell. But you can't sell unless you first warm up the prospect by showing them directly how they will benefit from your offering.

If you want to meet your business goals, you simply MUST focus on your customer's goals first.

Strategy #2: Focus on Benefits, Not Features
You've probably heard this one over and over, but I still see web copy and brochures that focus way too much on product features.

Prospects are not going to care about that extra knob on the front if they can't figure out how the product will solve a problem they are facing.

Strategy #3: Give Stuff Away
The best way to attract new clients and to convert Suspects to Prospects is to give away quality content. This means not only free content on your website, but also the creation and giveaway of free downloadable guides, tip sheets, white papers and ebooks. This also includes forms for sending out free product samples or scheduling a free demo.

The more quality stuff you give away, the more trust and credibility you'll build and the more clients you'll attract. Some aggressive marketers give away 95% of what they produce in order to sell the remaining 5%. This may sound like a poor strategy but it has literally made millionaire after millionaire.

My personal recommendation is to give away information in the form of ebooks, tip sheets or white papers. On the very last page of your download, you can add a little commercial about your products and services as well as your website URL and complete contact info.

I also recommend you capture the person's first name and email address before allowing them to download your giveaway. Better yet, ask them to sign up for your monthly newsletter in exchange for the download.

Strategy #4: Develop a Compelling Guarantee
There are many ways to stand out from the crowd that don't rely on a particular product or service offering. Another way to do this is to create a compelling guarantee that no one else in your industry offers.

How about offering a 2-year product guarantee instead of the 1-year guarantee your competition offers? How about double your money back if not satisfied? How about a lifetime guarantee? Even if you offer a commodity-type product, you can easily set yourself apart by creating a compelling product or service guarantee.

Corte Swearingen has been a marketing professional for 20 years and is the creator of the Small Business Marketing Tips website as well as a free Online Marketing Course for small business owners. For additional marketing strategy articles, visit Marketing Strategy Articles.