5 Pillars of Successful Marketing Online Anyone Can Use

Between successful marketing online and failure, the span can be narrow

Successful marketing online is something you have in mind when looking at certain brands. Those brands have crushed the marketing code and got their brands to be an asset worth millions and, in many cases, billions of dollars.

But positioning a brand and getting it to be an essential ingredient in marketing doesn’t happen by itself. It’s a mix of many features. The exciting thing is that the combination of those features applies to multi-billion companies and your small business that just started.

When crafting a marketing strategy for your business, successful marketing online for anyone comes down to (in my opinion) the following five pillars.

Definition of your customers’ needs
Adaptation to your customers’ needs
Proof
Acceptance of the proof
Closing

I learned these five pillars, D.A.P.A.C., early in my career as a vacuum cleaner sales rep. Back then, we used cold canvasing and went out and knocked on potential customers’ doors. Standing in front of a completely unknown person with a $1,000 vacuum cleaner in your hand and, an hour later, leaving the house without the vacuum cleaner but with a check of $1,000 in your pocket requires some skills.

Successful marketing online follows the same pattern in today’s new business environment.

In the following five steps of the pillars, I will give you my experience as a vacuum cleaner rep and how to apply the same strategy for successful marketing online.

As you will notice, the most successful sales method is not to sell. It’s like we talk about in one of m most popular blog posts; to earn money, stop chasing the money.

The 5 Pillars of Successful Marketing Online

Many wondered back then and are still wondering how people can spend hundreds of dollars on such an unsexy product as a vacuum cleaner. Nobody likes cleaning the home, but you still do it, and that’s the point.

There are many similar examples of things you don’t like to do but you still do it. Who loves to brush your teeth? Anybody who loves to wash the plates after dinner?

The answer is that there is a need for something behind everything you do. It can be something obvious but also something hidden.

Definition of your customers’ needs

Your duty as a good sales rep or a professional online entrepreneur is to find the need behind the product or the service.

Many get it wrong initially and try to sell all the product features. They can be fantastic features, but you’ll get lost even before starting the process if they don’t connect to the customer’s needs.

When selling vacuum cleaners, by the way, the best in the industry, I knew that I had the best vac to offer. However, my customer doesn’t care if it is a vac with a hermetic metal body, H.E.P.A. filter, and endless fabulous accessories.

W.I.I.F.M.

You probably know about the W.I.I.F.M. channel every customer wants to listen to. What’s-In-It-For-Me, meaning why do I need your product?

When it comes to a vacuum cleaner, the most obvious need is the need for good health.

In an online business, the needs can be, for example:

Money
Freedom
Extra income stream
Appropriate channel to promote a product or service of yours
Etc.

Your work is discovering every customer’s needs and creating a niche for each. When marketing your product or service, you will only connect to that particular need you’ve identified for your niche.

Create an avatar where you describe the niche’s ideal customer as much as possible.

With billions of people reachable to you through all available online channels, the temptation will always be there to target as large a group of people as you can. There is a saying that goes like this:

“Market to everybody is the same as market to nobody.”

Adaptation to your customers’ needs

This phase of the process is when your marketing process starts. Adapting your product or service to the needs previously identified is the work to do.

Standing there with my vac and knowing that one person in the family suffers from an allergy and has difficulties sleeping well at night, my “adaptation” question becomes quite obvious.

“If I can help you to control the allergy inconvenience, would that be of interest to you?”

The possible answer would be:

“Of course!”

“How to do that?”

Or any other variant of the same answers. The thing here is to connect the customer’s need to the benefits of my product or service.

For successful marketing online, you do the same. If the potential customer expresses a need for an extra income stream without having to resign from his or her corporate job, only push this point and nothing else.

“If I can help you to create an extra income stream on your weekend or in the evenings after your work, would that be of interest to you?”

What do you think the answer will be?

Suppose the customer won’t give you the positive response you expect for any reason. In that case, the probability is high that you didn’t define the needs correctly.

Proof

This is the moment of truth. You should prove to the customer that your product’s benefits cover the need you have defined together with the customer.

In the example above, I take my vacuum cleaner, and together with the customer, we vacuum the mattress of the allergic person. It’s a dramatic moment when piles of dust are exposed on the bed.

Explaining that the yellowish dust on the mattress contains mites, probably causing difficulties in sleeping at night, you can imagine the reaction from the customer’s side.

Don’t spoil the chance for a successful sale by trying to close right now. We are missing an important step. Instead, use the evidence to get as many reactions as possible from the customer. You’re building up the customer’s positive attitude toward your product.

How to act with your online business effort and get your customer to react in a similarly positive way?

If the need was to create an extra side income and free time, show how other people in the same situation have succeeded by using the product or service you’re offering.

Don’t try to sell because successful marketing online doesn’t require any sales effort. Instead, you help your customer toward a clever decision; to purchase your product.

Acceptance of the proof

“This is the tool (the vacuum cleaner) you need to solve your son’s allergy problem, don’t you agree?

“You can’t live another day without this vacuum cleaner, right?”

“To create this side business during evenings and weekends, you will start to see more money in your bank account soon; isn’t that something you would like to achieve?”

“This online business opportunity you have been searching for, and now it’s time to make it happen, right?”

Whatever product or service you’re promoting, this formula always works. Just remember:

Do not try to sell but help your customer to purchase!

Closing

By applying the D.A.P.A.C. formula correctly, the closing becomes more of a formality. Trying to sell your product at this phase is almost always a guarantee of failure.

The customer has already decided, and the closing process is more about how to formalize the purchase. It can be issues like financing, what features to add, and what can be waiting. With trust built up with the client, you become his or her trustworthy adviser.

At the end of the day, even if you promote a brand of high quality and a good reputation, the customers buy because they trust you. Use that unique label you created with your clients, and start growing a solid long-term business.

There are obstacles to overcome during the marketing process, from cold leads to hyper-satisfied customers. These hurdles we call for objections and do not necessarily appear because your pitch isn’t correct. Knowing how to handle objections successfully, they can even be purchase signals.

In a later article, we will exclusively handle objections, as they require a long and profound explanation to be helpful in your successful marketing online.

Be Successful Marketing Online with Authority Marketing

Being a valued member on my subscription list, you have either started your business or are about to begin soon. When promoting our different programs, we never try to convince people to purchase something without fully agreeing on the path to take.

In our portal, you will find tons of information and proposals for different ways to go. We call it Authority Marketing, and there are opportunities for any need you might have. It can be that you are searching for an extra income stream, or you’re fed up with your 9-5- job. Perhaps you have retired or are about to retire and search for something to add to your monthly pension payouts.

When checking out this page, you will also find several examples of people who have been in the same situation as you are. They took the step and are now successful as online entrepreneurs. In many of the cases, they didn’t have a clue about how this online marketing was working. Now they are authorities in our community.

Together we’ll come up with a market to serve, find products to promote, and launch your dream online business in the next 30-60 days!

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