One of the biggest dichotomies for a technology firm is that while innovation and cutting edge technology is great, overcoming customer’s perceived risk is a significant barrier for achieving sales targets. This is even more difficult for SMEs who may not have the marketing muscle to advertise like a company the caliber a company such as Apple does. Often potential customers wait for success stories before deciding to take the plunge, especially if it is a high ticket purchase or from an unknown brand. In this post we will look at some of the ways in which you can win customers for a product based on cutting edge technologies even without a huge marketing budget.
Use Industry Forums and Expert Reviews
This is a great one and a triple bonus because you get credibility, SEO value, and a forum for essential feedback. Customers who are unable to make a decision regarding a product often rely on product reviews in an online forum or a niche magazine before making their purchase. It is important to be present in industry forums where you can talk about your product and its features (an extra bonus is some good SEO juice with a relevant link in your signature). Want to kick this tip to the next level? Try to lure an expert in your field to review your product or service. It would go a long way in building credibility for your product offering. You may need to pay the expert or give them free service for a lifetime, but it will be worth it in the long run. Being present in online forums also helps you to get customer feedback which can be used to tweak the offering that you have and fix any minor glitches that may come to light in the initial days of usage.
Encourage trials
When your product offering is relatively new, it is important to encourage trials so that you can convince your customers about the quality and value of your offering. Let’s jump out of the tech pool for a second and talk about shampoo.
Important side note, my head is basically shaved so shampoo holds a special place in my heart.
Pretend you just made a great shampoo that smells like a freshly washed Angelina Jolie. No one will believe you unless you give the people what they want – free samples! Try offering trial sachets for a one time wash, along with a discount coupon for a larger bottle. A non-shampoo tip (I know this is heartbreak for people who love shampoo related tips) is to encourage trials by offering to exchange an older model (either your own or that of competitor) for a new model.
Wait, that can work for shampoo. Bring in a bottle of your busted shampoo for the new Jolie shampoo. Yes!
Incentivise Word of Mouth
When you don’t have a huge marketing budget, you need to depend on your initial trend setters to act as your product marketers as well. It is important to incentivise word of mouth publicity for your new product, especially in this mobile age where opinions about a new product gets shared across the globe within a matter of seconds. It is a good idea to offer some kind of a gift for referrals to incentivize people to start talking about your product and encourage all their juicy social circles to try it as well. Remember that people are usually part of communities (both online and offline) where the members have similar profiles and share similar interests. Thus one of the best way to reach your target market is through word of mouth publicity from the initial group of users.
Try bundling
If your offering is an improvement over an existing product or service, it would be a good idea to bundle the new version along with the older version of the product for the initial period. This would ease the decision making process for the customers and make the transition to the new product easier. People are scared of change so gluing the old with the new is like easing into a scorching hot tub inch by inch.
Go viral
This is one of the best ways in which you can create a buzz around your product. Create a virus named after your product and spread that around the Internet. Just kidding.
Studies have shown that most videos which go viral have a humor element in it. You need to create a humorous video around your offering and try to make it viral. If YouTube has taught us anything, it’s that people like talking fruit and vicious badgers. You can then link it up with a more serious video such as a ‘how to’ video or a ‘tips& tricks’ video which helps customers easily adapt and make the best use of the product. These videos can be linked to the original viral video so that you are able to convert a significant percentage of the viewers into actual customers.
These are some of the ways in which you can address customer’s hesitation to actually buy your product. Have you tried any of these tactics to encourage potential customers? Have you created a computer virus to raise product awareness? Which ones do you think are the most successful when it comes to overcoming customer reluctance? Please share some thoughts below. Sharing is caring!
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With thanks to Nicolas and SpottedFrogDesign.com
