Buyers today try to break through their frustration by turning to the Internet. The vast amount of information available through the Web allows them to “get educated” prior to making purchasing decisions. Thus, buyers today command more power and salespeople are often at their mercy. Regardless whether you promote through the Internet or other media, you can no longer dominate your competition by using fluff. Nor can you succeed with arguments that fail to clearly differentiate you from your competitors, unless you are marketing a major established brand like Coca Cola or McDonalds.

What you better do

You must overcome buyer skepticism. First, ensure what you offer is superior to your competition. Then create promotion that makes a bold but true statement that sets you apart from the rest. Your statement must express a clear advantage of doing business with you. To really work, back it with proof strong enough to convince even suspicious potential buyers, as they are growing too rapidly in numbers.

Your promotion should make your potential clients believe they would be crazy to buy from anyone but you. To achieve this, ask if what you think makes your business superior is important to your potential buyers. What your target market believes is what counts, not what you think they should think. You discover this through superiority surveys.

Stop guessing

Uncover your target market’s ranking of values for your product or service through surveys. This is essential in determining what to emphasize in your strategy. You can word questions to uncover frustrations people have in using your type of product or service. Also, you can determine exactly what potential buyers believe would make what you offer clearly superior to competitors’ products or services.

If you conduct your surveys properly, your analysis will unveil a treasure. This is called your market superiority opportunity.

Change your operations?

Surveys may uncover the need to change how you operate in order to create a position of superiority. Or, you may already offer the superiority that will work and you are ready to launch your campaign. If your business does require internal changes, establish a plan of action. Your marketing people must understand this need and have the managerial experience to assist you with a smooth and effective transition. Therefore, it is no longer enough for a marketing firm or ad agency to know only marketing. They need to be effective management consultants too.