Logic or Emotion? Why People Buy...

How do you convince people to buy your product? 

I've been invited to address the Operation JumpStart class in the Best Southwest Small Business Development Center at Cedar Valley Community College later this month, and that's the topic I've been asked to address.

I suppose business people have been asking that question since buying and selling began. Entire books and courses exist that talk about nothing else. What makes a person or company decide to buy from one company and not another? Are the companies that different? Are the products that different? Many companies offer the same or similar products, yet some are clearly more successful than others. Why is that?

Most of us don't have the time and/or resources to study this exhaustively. There is a new book or workshop every year. You could start reading right now and still not have finished all the books on this topic by the end of the year! Personally, after many years as both a marketer and a professional sales rep, what I believe is pretty simple and straightforward:

Buyer Fact #1: People don't buy what they don't know about.
Buyer Fact #2: Knowing about something isn't the same as being interested in it.
Buyer Fact #3: Most purchases are based on emotion.
Buyer Fact #4: Once emotion and interest are engaged, logic can justify the purchase.

Knowing just these few things about buyers should make some marketing truths pretty clear. If you hope to sell your product, you need to understand these truths.

Marketing Truth #1: You have to find the people who are interested in your product.
Marketing Truth #2: You have to know how to reach them.
Marketing Truth #3: You have to present your product in a way that appeals to their emotion.
Marketing Truth #4: You can usually charge a higher price when people want what you sell.

While there can be some variations on this based on whether you're selling b2b or b2c, there's still a lot of truth to the old saying "People buy from People". Even in a b2b setting, where logic seems to dictate purchases, when all products and prices are similar, emotion is likely to tip the balance.

The Marketing Hat and Small Businesses

Want to read more about "The Marketing Hat"? Click on the picture!

Small business owners wear a lot of hats. In fact, at one time or another, they wear ALL the hats in the company.  One of the most uncomfortable can be that pesky "marketing hat". Marketing can seem overwhelming, and it's not hard to see why. Is it advertising? Is it sales? Is it social media? Is it promotional products? Is it events? Is it postcards?

We've watched small businesses take all kinds of approaches to marketing, including ignoring it all together! Formal marketing education mostly takes the approach that its students will work in large corporations, and the training is quite intense.

We've created "The Marketing Hat" as a one-day crash course in marketing for small businesses. Getting down to the basics, such as how to budget, how to make a plan and how to execute it without killing yourself in the process. You CAN scale good principles to fit your small business, and in the process learn how to find the right customers and maintain it with a good return on your investment!

Mary Beth Smith

NDMG

Dallas, TX 

If you are interested in attending our Dallas class on August 13, email me at mbsmith@NorthDallasMarketingGroup.com
 and I'll send you a promo code that will save you $40 off the registration.  

This is a good deal - you should check it out!

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Old Home Week?

When I lived in New England, I found the origins of the phrase "Old Home Week". It was a time when people gathered in home towns and celebrated their shared heritage. I guess I always knew that's what the phrase meant - I just didn't know people really did it!

We gathered with several thousand other small business owners at the Dallas Convention Center a couple of weeks ago, and had our own "Old Home Week" in a sense - visiting with and sharing stories among ourselves, seeing people we already knew, and meeting others for the first time.

Being from a small town is different than growing up in a large city. Likewise, marketing for a small business is different than marketing for a large corporation. Spending the day with so many small business owners reminded us why we focus on their special situations, and reinforced for us how much we love it!


Besides storm troopers, we visited with bakers, designers, writers, accountants, lawyers, educators, several chambers of commerce, insurance reps, retail stores, service businesses and more.

Our display was pretty simple - a nice table cloth and plenty of print brochures, along with some great pens, sticky notes and bookmarks. Just like any other 'reunion', we got to talk about the usual things, plus new things, like our book publishing division, Park Cities Press, and our printing company, AlphaGraphics of Park Cities.

It was a festive day, and we look forward to the next "Old Home Week" - You should come join us next time!!