Let Them Know Why They Should Listen

If a complete stranger walks up to me and says, “I’d like to sell you something,” I’m not going to care that much about listening to them. They can tell me that this will change my life, make everything better, or save me a lot of money, and I still probably won’t give them much of my attention.

Why is this? Because I don’t know anything about the person I’m talking to. All I know about them is that they want to sell me something. I don’t see why I should trust their word or give them my attention, and this is an issue with a lot of different businesses.

The first thing you should do when it comes to any kind of marketing is let the person know why it’s in their best interest to listen to you. If the first thing you say is you want to sell them something then everything else you say will be prefaced by that fact, but if you begin by asking them about themselves, about what they like and don’t like, you’ll have a stronger leg to stand on when the notion of buying finally comes up.

This applies to almost all forms of marketing, whether you’re there in person or your having color printing done to send out in-print advertisements.

Part of this deals with getting a person to learn more about you from the beginning. Once you have their trust your approach to marketing to them is going to change.

Here’s an example: a company who just started isn’t going to have a strong presence in the marketplace. People won’t know who they are and won’t have any reason to listen to them or trust them. That’s why the first color printing a new company has done should provide the emphasis on letting people get to know them. If the first thing a company does is go right for the sale, they’ll likely turn people away instead.

But if you start out by handing people brochures explaining who you are and how you can help them, if you give them reasons why you can help them either save money or get better services, people will begin to understand and trust you. That’s when you can get postcards, posters, and other shorter styles of marketing done to sell directly to them. Now they know you and so now when you send them a postcard saying here is an upcoming sale, that’s all you need to say, because they know you’re going to give them the best deal they can get.

A lot of this is really a matter of knowing how to market when you’re new versus when you’ve been around for years. Don’t try to get too far ahead of yourself too early on, or you might find you aren’t generating the kind of interest you were expecting to, and see those marketing attempts going to waste.

Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in color printing industry and its benefits for small to medium-scale businesses.