Marketing Tips

March 2009

Beset by Customer Questions? Treat Them Like Gold — They’re One Key to Boosting Your Clientele and Revenue

Once upon a time there was a man who loved two things: photography and
people. Thanks to a combination of goofy country-boy charm and solid technical know-how, he became the manager of a run-down photo supply store in an equally run-down part of Baltimore.

And by selling not just cameras, equipment and film, but also knowledge (and his own special brand of humor), he moved that scruffy shop into the Kodak 500...THE local hot spot where commercial photographers, art professors, students, and amateur shutterbugs would gather for information, conversation, and fun.

That was my husband. And by sheer raw sales instinct, he demonstrated the two key truths of using information as a marketing tool…
• that the customers who create sales-counter bottlenecks with their endless questions – if you give them the information they need – will come back to you again and again, buy your products, and refer their friends to you.
• that by listening and interacting with your customers, not  simply selling them products and sending them out the door, you can defy economic hard times and make your business famous and beloved.

What he didn’t know was that today it would be possible to start interacting with your prospects before they ever get to the door. How?  By determining the questions they’re asking, and giving them the answers in a marketing teleseminar.

But you have an FAQ on your website, you might say, and that’s supposed to answer “frequently asked questions,” right? And surely you don’t want to give your prospects all the information they want, because why would they come to you then?

Well......think of the way a disposable camera pales beside a professional digital SLR system, and you’ll have a rough idea of how an FAQ compares to the real-time connection that you can forge with your prospects by providing them with answers in a teleseminar.

In its most basic form, a teleseminar is a telephone conference call in which you give a presentation to a number of people, then answer their questions in real time. Generally it’s geared toward a certain service, product, or aspect of your business that draws repeated inquiries. It’s not intended to give every last bit of information you have, but to answer specific issues.

For example, let’s say that you have a framing business and you are continually fielding questions about archival framing for vintage photographs. So, to attract new clients, you might host a teleseminar in which you give your answers, opinions, and commentary on the topic.

Promote your teleseminar on your website and in all the places where your prospects gather – online forums, Meetup groups, camera stores, and so forth. Remember to gear your promotion to the questions your clients actually ask, not the questions you think they should ask!  

You can set up your teleseminar presentation as a one-person talk, or ask a prominent professional associate to introduce and interview you for a livelier, more memorable session. Most teleseminars tend to be 1-2 hours in length; keep your presentation to roughly half the length of the call to give your audience plenty of time for Q&A.  Save just a few minutes at the midpoint and end of the call to announce a special offer related to the product or service you’re discussing.

Remember – if you are a small business owner, in the end you are your product. You are the expert who makes your business approachable to your clients. The extent to which your clients trust you is in direct proportion to their feeling of personal connection with you. Teleseminars are an immediate – and profitable – way to create that personal connection.

Phila Hoopes
The Tree-Huggin’ Copywriter
Giving Your Vision Your Voice
http://www.your-words-worth.com

Past Marketing Tips