October’s Midweek Spark theme: Know Your Market
In the current marketplace, there are many ways that consumers and businesses can “shop” for products and services. In order to grow your business, it is essential that you find unique ways to connect with your market. It no longer works to list what services and products you provide and hope people will understand your “brilliance”. You now need to know and connect with what motivates your prospective customers. What outcome are they looking for? What is the burning issue they are trying to solve? With so much information available and so many choices, people buy from individuals and organizations that they “Know, Like and Trust” AND that also show that they understand their customers’ desires and needs.
The B2C Market
What is the B2C Market? Generally B2C means Business to Consumer sales and is understood to describe or involve the sale of goods or services directly to customers for their own use, rather than to businesses. The dynamics of the B2C market are much more complicated than the B2B market. Consumers are bombarded with information. They have limited funds, and many demands and wants.
As a business selling to consumers, it’s important that you connect at the level that motivates your prospective customers. You must attract them to your message, not to your product’s specifications. Think about Apple. Apple has done an amazing job of focusing on the customer experience and rarely talks about their specifications in their marketing material. Apple is focuses on the emotions and desires of consumers to be happy, to enjoy and to connect with others. .
So what motivates a consumer to spend their money and to purchase something new? I bet lots of reasons and possible motivations are going through your mind right now. Surprisingly, you’ll find they end up in only a few major categories:
- Improvement (self, relationships, family)
- Happiness
- Connecting with others
- Feel they “need it”
- Pure enjoyment
- “Have” to fix something
- Security
- General well-being
- Guilt
Here are a few examples:
Example |
Key Motivations |
| Fitness Club | Self-improvement, general well-being, feel they “need” it |
| Book/program on financial freedom | Security, general well being, happiness |
| Golf Lessons | Self improvement, happiness, pure enjoyment |
| Physiotherapy | Self improvement, general well being |
| Buying a house | Security, happiness, feel they “need it” |
| Hire a life coach | Self improvement, general well being, “have” to fix something |
Which category(s) do your products and/or services sit in? How are you connecting or incorporating your buyers’ motivations into your marketing material? How can you adapt your message and sales approach to connect with consumers?
In today’s market, we all need to connect with the emotional triggers of our customers and their desired outcomes, in order to stand out and increase our sales.
Take 30 minutes this week and list out all the motivations of consumers that your solution addresses.
Please share your customers’ triggers below.
Next week’s topic: Know Your Market – Connecting
I love to see entrepreneurs follow their passions, serve more people and create the lifestyle of their dreams.
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Thanks Heather! I added Guilt to my notes!
Great article!