Interest-sparking messages and closing the sale

When you have a good understanding of your target market and the matching product, designing your marketing and sales process is easy.

6.4.2023

Heikki Immonen, Karelia University of Applied Sciences

The two main stages of marketing and sales process are based on somewhat different aspects of your understanding and the value proposition of your product.

Let’s see how to craft an interest-sparking marketing message and to close the sales by handling objections and clearing any doubts the customer might have.

An interest-sparking marketing message has two components

A good marketing message is specific, concrete, and simple. Sometimes it is also creative or curiosity-sparking. People you know, ad professionals, or text-generation and image-generation AI’s might be good at brainstorming different versions of the message.

What should the content of the message be then? An interest-sparking marketing message has two main parts:

  • First, it has the targeting part, which allows the potential customer to recognize that the message is relevant for them.
  • Second, it has the interest-sparking part, which motivates the customer to move on to the next stage in the buying process.

Let’s look at both of these parts in more detail.

Targeting part – the need you are targeting at or a well-known product category?

The targeting part is based on the need your product is satisfying with the customer. When the potential customer who has this need, reads, hears, or sees your message, they know that the message is relevant for them.

There are two main ways to accomplish this: you can mention the need directly or you can refer to a well-known product category that is associated with this need. Let’s look at some examples representing both types of targeting parts of the marketing message.

A targeting part that explicitly mentions the need:

  • Are you suffering from dry skin?… (targeting part for a skin-care product)
  • Get fit at… (targeting part for a gym)
  • It is time to relax… (targeting part for a spa)

Targeting parts that mention a well-known product category linked to the need:

  • A car that… (a well-known product category that is related to people’s needs of moving around)
  • … beer. (a well-known product category bought for, for example, anxiety-relieving, mood amplifying or social-belonginess purposes)
  • Hotel night in Helsinki… (a well-known service category and satisfies the need for accommodation)

After you have figured out the targeting part, it is time to think about the interest-sparking part.

Interest part – unique benefit

To spark the potential customer’s interest, you need to communicate about the unique benefit your product or service has over competition. If you understand your target market well, you’ll have no problem communicating about that benefit verbally or visually. Let’s use the same examples as before.

Examples of interest-sparking parts of the marketing message:

  • Are you suffering from dry skin? Order Blue Solution – one bottle will last a whole year!
  • Get fit with the price of only 10 € / month!
  • It is time to relax at our forest spa.
  • A car that has the lowest costs per kilometer.
  • Number one Nordic beer.
  • Hotel night in Helsinki and the best breakfast in town.

 If the message is motivating enough, a potential customer willingly moves on to the next stage in the sales and marketing process. Let’s look at how to be successful at this stage.

What your website or sales meeting should accomplish

If your marketing message does its job, you’ll get a visitor to your website, store, or meeting room. This means that you have sparked the potential customer’s interest.

Because people are not usually stupid, they are asking themselves: “is this too good to be true?”. The unique benefit you are offering feels tempting, but in order to bite they need to know that rest of the deal is okay, too.

That’s why, at this stage you need to clear any doubts, and show that you can be trusted.

Handling objections and doubts

Most product and service categories have common problems and issues associated with them. The potential customer wants to hear that these problems will not come true if they buy your product.

Ideally, very early in the product-development process you have acquired a good understanding of the target market. When you know what problems the competing products typically have, you can work on to design a product that doesn’t have these problems. This way, before you build a website, or when you prepare for your sales meeting, you can focus on a list of questions and doubts a potential customer might have because of bad previous experiences with similar products.

At least for the most important items on the problem list in your potential customers’ minds, find a way to communicate how they will not be affected by these problems if they decide to choose your product.

A few examples of common problems associated with some product or service categories:

  • For restaurants: bad and slow service, bad food, hidden expenses
  • Buying a used car or a house: hidden major problems that will become costly later on
  • Picking a hotel for a vacation: unclean rooms, impolite service, bad neighborhood

A famous example of doubts generated by a unique benefit is IKEA.

A unique benefit of IKEA has been the affordable prices of its furniture. A cheap furniture automatically brings you an image of poor quality. To clear this objection, IKEA actively explains to their customers why they are able to offer lower prices without compromising the quality (customers must assemble the furniture themselves etc..).  

Showing that what you say is true

For new potential customers, it is not enough to say that customers should not worry. You also need to show that what you say is true. They need to trust you.

If you are yourself a living example of someone who used to suffer from many problems the existing products have, but then, with the solution you developed to overcome these problems, you’ve suddenly become the best evidence that your product really works. It also shows that you understand your customer’s pain.

In general, testimonials are a good type of proof. Reference customers or sales numbers are another kind of evidence on the trustworthiness of your offer. Publicly available reviews and star-ratings have become very important in some fields for selecting a service, such as a restaurant or a hotel.

Summary

A marketing and sales funnel will lead potential customers to make a buying decision. When you have a good understanding of your target market, and a product that fits it well, it will be easy for you to:

  • Gain customers’ attention with a message that has a targeting part based on customer need and an interest-sparking part based on the unique benefit of your product.
  • Close the deal by handling objections and doubts and showing that what you say is true.

About this article

The writing of this article was supported by the INnoVations of REgional Sustainability: European UniversiTy Alliance project. https://www.invest-alliance.eu/ . This project is funded by the Erasmus+ Program.

The content of this article represents the views of the author only and is his sole responsibility. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.

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