Why Should I Care About Your Offer?

photo credit: tjsander

Is your business volume not quite where you’d like to see it right now? Thinking of doing some advertising to drive traffic to your business? Great idea! But before you get too crazy, please stop to consider why the consumer should care. Ask yourself, if I were the consumer, “Why do I need Hep Five?”

Now, you may be able to get away with telling me your widget is iPad 2.0, available six months before anyone else has one, and it’s 33% off. But somehow, we’re never really that lucky are we? We almost always have to demonstrate to potential buyers why we think they should care about what it is we’re selling. And to the degree that you can get them to care, you’re going to be successful in getting them to buy.

This is the old features vs benefits discussion. But the age of the argument isn’t as relevant as benefits it helps you to uncover. Entrepreneur.com published an article 10 years ago on this topic and it’s as relevant today as it was then. The article, titled Marketing Features Vs. Benefits: Learn the difference, and then see the difference in your bottom line does a very good job of helping the reader to understand the nebulous differences between features and benefits — or more precisely features and RESULTS. It’s the results we care about as consumers. We care about how your product is going to improve our lives: make something easier, faster, better, or just cool.

Consumer buy products for RESULTS, not because the seller thinks we should. The product or service has to improve my life somehow in order for me to want to trade it for cash.  So as you’re putting together that advertising offer, be sure to ask yourself why the customer should care about the offer — even if it is a remarkable 50% off sale. You still have to demonstrate RESULTS and VALUE to the customer before they will do business with your company.

So before you throw your profit margin out the window and spend a lot of money on advertising, take a moment to consider why your customer needs “Hep Five” and how their lives will be improved because they have it. Armed with that understanding, you may find you don’t need as much advertising or as steep a sale price to entice customers to your door. And after all, that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?