The best sales strategies are the ones that customers don’t notice. It may be a sad realization, but gone are the days where Don Draper and associates lounge about in some corner office filled with cigar smoke as they draw up the next genius strategy. That’s because the techniques have gotten a lot more sophisticated.
What we’re trying to say is, sales techniques are less designed these days and more, how do you say, carefully engineered. With that in mind, we have pulled together some simple ways you can encourage your customers into spending their money on you.
The Power Of The Past
We mentioned Don Draper above, but we did so in a way that was a bit negative. So we’re going to redeem ourselves by pointing to a Mad Men moment of genius – his Kodak pitch. You see, research has shown that people value money a whole lot less when nostalgia is used in marketing and sales. It pulls on the heartstrings and makes them more willing to cough up.
Get Them To Handle The Product
That’s right. Something as simple as being welcoming and encouraging your customers to handle a product can improve their chances of buying said product. Substantially. We’re talking about 40% more chance for everyday products and 60% for food and snacks. Even more interestingly, the longer you leave a customer holding a product the more likely they are to part with their cash. Do with that what you will.
Don’t Give Them An Excuse
A lot of the time, consumers will be looking for a way out of a purchase, almost as if they want a sign to pop along and let them know that they are right for feeling guilty. It is up to you to make sure they don’t get given an excuse. It could be that they will only pay by credit card, in which case you should go onto merchants.services and read about the pros for riding out the processing.
Another great option available to you is going down the finance route. There is no better way of making your luxury product accessible than to offer them the chance to pay it off in installments. The end.
The Bulk Bargain Illusion
The important thing to understand right away is, if a customer picks up a basket or pushes a trolley, then they are probably going to fill it up. That is a subconscious thing that we all do. What you want to do is convince them that the deals they are loading up with are worth it, even if that means creating an illusion.
Little things like adding the phrase, “a maximum of 10 packs per customer,” to a shelf of crisps creates the sense of a deal even if no discount is actually being offered. The same goes for something like “8 items for just $8”. This is no different to 1 for $1 but people make the assumption there is a deal to be had and thus they toss them into the trolley.
Like we said at the beginning, it is just about being sophisticated with your strategy.