So now you have the needs of your customers, you need to translate that into the benefits that you are selling them. The benefit is what the customer will get from solving their problem with your product. For example, maybe your shovel prevents blisters while digging (benefit) because of a specially designed rubber grip (feature). As you can see the benefit clearly gives the ‘why’ for using your product over others. The feature is ‘how’ the product will give you the benefit.

Let’s look again at my business. I offer a service that:

• improves the business
• improves the website
• makes more sales and profit
• frees the business owner to focus on other tasks
• handles all aspects of website promotion

This is why you should be using my business. You’ll notice I have no features in the list. I’ll mention features of course, but not before I have my customer sold on the benefit. The reason comes before the method.

This is a vital key to marketing your business successfully. It’s about looking at your business from the customer’s point of view and tailoring your delivery to them for a change.

So let’s jump inside your customers head for a second. Are you there? Right, so what is the need that is bringing them into the store in the first place? Say you sell shovels. Does your customer need a shovel? No, he needs a hole. Sell decorating supplies? Your customer wants their house to look beautiful. Maybe they want to sell it, maybe the decorating is looking old, maybe their friend just repainted and they’re jealous.

Let’s look at my business. Did you come here looking to optimise your website for search engines and internet marketing techniques? Maybe, but what is the underlying need that got you to that point? That’s it, you want your business to make more sales and from that, more money! So am I selling search engine optimisation and internet marketing services? On the surface, that’s what my products are. But what you really need is to:

• improve your business
• make more money
• have more free time 
• delegate the hard work
• use an expert in an area you are not

Sound about right? If not, please drop me a line as I’m desperate to find out all the needs of my customers. As you should now be!

If you’re not collecting the data of your customers now, start immediately. Get as much as possible without impeding the sale. Worst case, you should have their age, location, sex, correlating with their purchase data. You should also obtain information from talking to your customers. Build up an image of who they are and what they like in your head.

Now you have the basics you need to ask yourself the big question: “What do my customers want from me?”

And no, the answer isn’t your product!

You need to look deeper, you need to look at the inner psychology of your customers, and you need to work out their deepest needs and desires.

These are the ‘benefits’ that you are selling your customers. Not a product, you are selling benefits!

Before you can sell anything to anyone, you need to know who you can sell to. More accurately, you need to know who wants to buy what you are selling. It doesn’t matter if you think your target market is teenagers, you need to know exactly the type of person that is buying your product. You need to know who, and you need to know why.

When you’re starting your business this will be trial and error. You will have an image of your potential customer and tailor your product to their needs. With time, you need to examine your customer profile and see if it fits with your marketing message. You always need to be evaluating who you are selling to and how you are doing it.

You also need to be aware of who else might want to buy your product. You could have many different customer profiles and need to tailor specific marketing material to each of their needs. This is where you should be using landing pages on your website, one page targeting each unique type of customer. Just be careful not to dilute your brand too much.