Article from The Marketing Compass Wiki

  In a fast changing environment, you can't rely on traditional marketing methods
  Avoid hard selling and focus on giving people useful information
  This will generate positive word of mouth and position you as an expert in your field
  The more you learn about your prospective customers' wants and needs, the better

To succeed in today’s highly competitive business environment, you need to take a new approach to marketing, says Nigel Temple, Founder of The Marketing Compass.

When it comes to marketing, it’s time to stop pushing so hard. After all, you don’t like being pushed, do you? In the ultra competitive 21st century, the secret to success lies in customer attraction. The people you’re trying to market to are inundated with thousands of marketing messages every day. To keep sane, they put up filters, making it harder than ever to get marketing messages through – hence falling response rates. To get through these filters, consider a new approach.

Give to get
The psychology of customer attraction is based on the philosophy of ‘give to get’. If you give something to someone, they will probably feel the need to return the favour. This approach will enhance your reputation, generate positive word of mouth and attract more customers.

Produce useful, relevant and up-to-date information. This information can be published on your website, printed in various forms and submitted to the media. There’s no need to use a 'hard sell' approach - this will turn people away. All you have to do is to point people in the direction of the useful material that we have been talking about.

This approach will attract more potential customers. Some of them will be in the market to ‘buy’ today. Many, however, will just be browsing. Therefore, the next stage is to tempt them to sign-up to some form of regular communication, such as an e-newsletter, blog or mailing list. In order to do this, provide an incentive in terms of additional packaged information which is relevant to the target market you are communicating with.

Think long-term
Typically, 97% of people in your target market are not ready to buy your product or service today. To attract more prospects, you need to offer a choice of interesting, helpful information. Think of it in terms of mackerel fishing - the more hooks you have on your line, the more fish you are likely to catch.

Find out what type of information your customers really want. Ask them which areas of your expertise are of interest to them. Offer them the information they have requested. Package it up in creative ways. All of this will make it easy for them to engage with you.

Incidentally, you don't have to give away all of your intellectual property - the point is to demonstrate your knowledge and prove your credibility.

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