Want to know the exact message to put in all your marketing to get more leads and make more sales? Of course you do and in today’s post I’m going to share with you my 6 steps of how to not only deliver what your audience thinks they need but what you know they need as well. If you understand this marketing communication strategy you can sell just about anything…even dirt! In fact lets do that today, lets sell dirt!
Warning: use this power for good not evil as it works incredibly well!
Surface and Root Level Marketing
What Your Audience Thinks They Need – Surface Problem
and there is
What they actually need – Root Problem
The root solution is what solves all of their problems and pains but the roots we often can’t see and unaware of. So we need to speak to our audience about the surface; which is where our audience is looking and then bring them down to the roots.
Let’s say you want to sell dirt. There are multiple audiences that will buy dirt so who are they?
Step 1: Pick an Audience
2 audiences come to my mind: the landscaper and the home gardener. For today's post lets market to Struggling Home Gardeners.
Step 2: Find their Pain or Problem
A surface level problem for the home gardener may be: “My flowers aren’t growing or blooming and I don’t know why!”
Step 3: Offer Promise of Hope/Solution
A surface level marketing message is: “3 Steps To Grow Beautiful Flowers in ANY Place ANY Time”
If a home gardener is having a hard time growing their flowers and all they want is beautiful flowers my marketing message will appeal to their needs. What attracts that audience is the promise of beautiful flowers – simple.
Step 4: Value and Agitate Pain
Before you deliver any kind of solution or attempt to sell your audience something you need to deliver value. Now one way you can do this is put yourself in your audience’s shoes and feel their frustration, understand and share why what they are doing is NOT working and that its NOT their solution. This agitates their pain a little bit and makes the audience come to a greater acknowledgement that they need a different solution.
Now what are the surface level solutions that a home gardener is likely trying to grow beautiful flowers. They have probably tried something like more sunlight or adjusting the amount of water they feed the plants and etc. Communicate that those things still aren’t working for them and why. Be sure to address this in your content and information you share with them. This would be great to communicate in a blog post and/or video.
In your content and message explain and share why watering and sunlight is not enough and this why they are not growing beautiful flowers. What awareness do you need to create for them?
When your audience comes to the conclusion or feels the pain of knowing what they are doing is not working then they are poised perfectly to receive a new solution that will deliver the promise of beautiful flowers.
Now that you have delivered some serious value you can address the root level problem AND the surface level problem and deliver the root level solution to solve both problems.
Step 5: Present Solution with Evidence
A root level solution could be the type of soil the gardener is using. (good thing we sell dirt in this example) The solution for the struggling home gardener is to get some nutrient rich soil to grow beautiful flowers. But they would have never realized that until they knew that what they were doing was NOT the solution.
Present the solution with evidence of the result or perceived benefit. You can do this by showing pictures, videos, testimonials, stats, results of others, polls, statistics, and just about anything else that demonstrates the truth in your promise. Show how having the right kind of dirt filled with nutrients to feed your flowers is the answer. The struggling gardener just thought it was sunlight and water needed to grow beautiful flowers and didn’t think that their flowers needed some nutrients to feed on. Now they are aware of their solution, so give it to them!
Step 6: Call To Action (sell)
Make your CTA (call to action) to purchase your dirt. For example, “Click Here To Buy Nutrient Rich Soil That Grows Beautiful Flowers.”
In the previous 5 steps you have done an excellent job of taking your audience’s mind from surface level down to root level. Your audience has gone from, “I want beautiful flowers,” to “What I am doing to grow flowers isn’t working,” to “I now know and I’m feeling pain that my flowers aren’t growing,” to “I need a solution,” to “I’m going to buy this solution to stop my pain and grow beautiful flowers to make me happy.” Your audience has traveled from surface level all the way down to the roots where you can deliver truly what a struggling home gardener needs to grow beautiful flowers. This will result for you in sales of your dirt to home gardeners.
When you take the time to effectively communicate by following this 6 step method you can make more sales, get more leads, and effectively help people. I hope you enjoyed my play on words with surface and root level marketing in todays post. Happy gardening…I mean marketing!
“Leave a comment below if you feel this can impact the way you make sales and get leads online.”
–Ron Gelok
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Want to know the exact message to put in all your marketing to get more leads and make more sales? Here are 6 steps of how to not only deliver what your audience thinks they need but what you know they need as well. If you understand this marketing communication strategy you can sell just about anything…even dirt!
The analogy makes the point with ease. Thanks for the extra effort
You make it sound so simple, Ron – love the clarity! Blessings!!
thanks Ron!
nice tips. Question do one need a website to follow this rule?
This method is spot on and I also love the analogy! Great work Ron and thanks