If you’re taking advantage of the techniques I discuss in Guerrilla Marketing, you’re probably already working to make your target market aware of the results and benefits you can provide to others. In sales – and ultimately we are all in sales – it’s important to sell the result, not the product itself. People don’t buy things, they buy the result of owning that item.
What benefits are being provided? As we go through this list, look critically at your business. In the vast majority of cases, these are the results that you’re trying to sell. Your product or service won’t necessarily fall into one of these categories; it’s far more likely that it will fall into more than one or even several. Let’s discuss the most effective results of what we sell.
1) Save time
Pretty straightforward. For most people this is profoundly important. Do you know anyone who feels like they have too much free time on their hands? I don’t either. Any product or service that can save people time and actually delivers has a built in market that includes practically everyone in their demographic. College students might be the exception here.
2) Save money
Most people want to save money. It’s important to understand your target market, however. For some people, saving a little is good enough. Other people want something more extreme. If your target market is upper middle class moms, couponing might not be the best fit. However, if your market is a college student, they have a little more free time and could be up for different challenges than their parents, for example.
3) Make money
If you have a legitimate product or service that enables people to make more money, the only reason you wouldn’t succeed is because you need new marketing.
4) Be pain free
You may have noticed that people will do things they have absolutely no desire to do in order to be pain free. Taking drugs, having surgery, going to therapy – none of these things are particularly enjoyable, in fact some of them are downright miserable. A product that promises and delivers the result of freedom from pain has access to a huge market.
5) Live and love
Most of us have done something others considered crazy in the name of love. Again, another easy sell. Everyone wants a positive, mutually beneficial relationship with the person of his or her dreams.
6) Avoid effort
What comes to mind when you think about avoiding effort? For me it’s having someone else take care of my calendar and social media for my business. I have a team that takes care of this for me because even though it’s simple, I just don’t like doing it. Personally, I am willing to spend a fair amount in comparison to the simplicity of the task in order to avoid effort. We all have some kinds of effort we enjoy. Some folks spend hours at their gym or running, others volunteer their time to teach a skill and so on. When using this benefit in your marketing, keep in mind that not everyone is trying to avoid the same kinds of effort.
7) Find success
There are two ways to improve in any area. You can teach yourself or you can find a coach or other expert to give you guidance, direction, and training. You may have noticed that, currently, the coaching market is exploding. And it makes perfect sense. After all, who doesn’t want success?
8) Be safe and secure
If you are concerned about your safety or survival, everything else in life gets put on hold. This benefit isn’t simply something that’s nice to have when we can afford it – all of society depends upon it to function. The other benefits are a distant second by comparison.
9) Increase happiness
My personal favorite is increase happiness. All the other benefits we’ve discussed work together to increase our overall happiness and contentment in life.
So there you have it – a list of benefits that you can use to improve and focus your guerrilla marketing skills.
