Making The Sale – How Do You Reduce Barriers To Entry?

Posted by Cucumber Helen |

At our digital marketing agency, we break down all our deliverables to our clients as components of the sales funnel: awareness, consideration, and purchase. All 3 of these components are critical to gaining new sales. You need awareness of your product/service in order to reach new markets. Once potential customers are aware of your product, you will need to educate them in order for them to understand the value that your product brings. This happens during the consideration phase. Lastly, even if you have an amazing product, it takes a little push for your customers to actually want to make a purchase.

Imagine that your product or service is like a gym membership. You know that your customers will benefit from your membership. Your potential customers know that they would benefit from your service. Yet, sales aren’t happening on a regular basis. Why is that?

When it comes to signing up for a gym membership, many people think “oh, it’s too expensive for me. I don’t have the time. It’s too much hassle.” These are barriers to entry – reasons why people choose not to make purchases that would actually improve their life.

Now, think back to your own product or service. What are your barriers to entry? Is your service too difficult to understand? Are there cheaper, easier alternatives that keep customers from trying your product?

Consider the following methods to help you make the final sale.

Putting It In Perspective

It’s easy to put together a list of “10 Tips To Improve Your Sales Copy,” but in all honesty, copywriting only makes up a small piece of the puzzle. Having amazing copy may help improve the conversion rate of your landing page(s), but you should have already “won” half the battle at that point.

Before even worrying about sales copy, ask yourself the following:

  • Do enough people know about my product?
  • Do the right people know about my product?
  • Do the right people understand how my product (or service) works?
  • Do the right people care about my product?

If the answer is “No” to any of the above, you’ll have to go straight back to the drawing board. There is no point in developing sales copy if you’re not reaching the right people, if the right people don’t care about your product, or if your sales offering is still too convoluted to understand.

At Cucumber Marketing, we develop a monthly editorial in order to ensure that the purposes of all deliverables are thoroughly discussed and critiqued before we even lift a finger to execute.

Acting On User Behaviour

The key to great sales copy is being able to act on your consumer’s natural instincts. One of the books we recommend reading is Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely – discussing the strange ways that people operate due to our hardwired behaviour. There’s a scientific approach to most sales techniques, which we include in our copy.

Some of these sales tips include:

  1. Priming – The number one most discussed copywriting technique discussed at marketing conventions (we’ve been to many) in the past year, has been the importance of storytelling as a marketing tool. Not only is storytelling engaging by nature, but a good story can also prime your customers for “why” they need your product or service, by describing a before/after scenario that’s relatable and believable.
  2. Establish Direct Connection – By addressing your customer directly, you create a rapport between your brand and your customer’s needs. This helps establish authenticity, and assures your customer that “hey, we understand what you’re going through and here’s how we can help.”
  3. Show The Future – Keep your explanation simple. There’s no need to oversell if you’re reaching the right people with the right products. If your “elevator pitch” is longer than 30 seconds, you’ll almost definitely lose your customer. In order to keep your sales points short and engaging, paint a picture of what “the future” will look like if your visitor becomes a customer. Will they become richer? Better in health? More social-savvy? Tap into their desires and help them reach their dreams.
  4. REDUCE – Time To Purchase – Time is the biggest barrier to entry, in more ways than one. “I don’t have enough time to sit down and try this” is a common barrier to entry. Break this down by offering a free trial at a click of a button. Keep the number of questions low, in order to make the purchasing process as simple as possible.
  5. REDUCE – Time to Avert – Have you ever been to a motivational speech? You might come out of the room feeling like a superhero, but fast forward a week later and you’re back to the daily grind. While your visitors are in a high-energy mood, give them the option to purchase your product or service at a discounted rate, for a limited amount of time. Don’t give them the time to get distracted by something else – you’ve worked too hard for them to achieve an “Aha!” moment, to let the opportunity slip away.
  6. REDUCE – “Value equations” – Everyone begins consideration by thinking “is this worth the money?” By adding an option like a “Buy One Get One Free,” or “Bring A Friend For Free,” you’ll immediately double the “value” of your product in their minds. Keep in mind, though, that this doesn’t work for all products and services (say, if you’re selling a luxury option this may not work).

Have you seen these in action? Some of our staff were lucky enough to see Tony Robbins when he was in town in August of 2018, and Kevin O’ Leary when he visited us in February this year. Guess what? Both of these amazing speakers employ ALL of the above techniques!

Building A Brand

The ultimate goal of generating great sales is to build your brand. If you sell a product or service 2-3 times to the same customer, with the same experience, you are building a brand. They know to expect a consistent level of service from you and are likely to convey that feeling or expectation to a wider community.

In order to help you build the best business possible, we’ll be providing various tips and tricks of the digital marketing trade in the coming few months. This month’s theme is Engage – how do you involve the interest of your customers to grab their attention? Hopefully, this article will help you identify the areas where you can improve your engagement with potential customers!