March 2004

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- by: Stuart

Last month, we learned that we are in the business of marketing. Regardless of what product or service we are selling, marketing is what we do.

Your customers have specific needs that they are trying to fulfill. As a marketer it is not your job to fulfill these needs, but rather to show and explain how your product or service will do that for them.

When a customer takes out his or her money to make a purchase, they want to know that they are spending their hard-earned money on something that is going to satisfy their wants and needs. They want the answer to the question, "What's in it for me?" As long as the answer to that question fulfills the specific need a prospect is looking for, you are well on your way to making the sale.

I once wrote a book that contained what I considered to be the top dozen reasons people buy something. Those reasons are based and ranked on decades of market research. Over the months, well talk about the most important ones for you and your business.

Today's subject from the list of why people spend money:

The very fact that you are an Internet marketer helps fulfill at least part of this need. Shopping on the Internet is a major convenience, and makes life easier for people. Believe it or not, some companies charge a "convenience fee" for customers who conduct transactions through their website.

Nearly every technological advance in history was originally intended to make life easier and/or more enjoyable for us poor humans. Let's face it. We don't live in a paradise. Every person everywhere has their own personal suffering to different degrees.

On the far side of the marketing scale is a tactic called "scare-tactic marketing". This is the practice of scaring a consumer into buying your product. The health industry is inundated with companies that use scare tactics as their main marketing tool.

Scare tactics are generally considered unethical. But there is a lot to learn from watching those who use the technique. Without going overboard, to the point that you are "scaring" your customers, you can often find people who suffer from something that they, personally, consider to be a major inconvenience.

For example, I once heard Christopher Reeve say that a lady wrote him a letter stating that she understood his suffering. She understood because she herself suffered from the horrible disease of chronic acid indigestion.

Now, Mr. Reeve got a good laugh out of it. How could anybody possibly compare acid indigestion with full body paralysis?

But the point is, something that one person may consider to be a minor inconvenience may be a serious issue for someone else. Next time you see a TV ad for acid reflux or acid indigestion products, pay close attention to their marketing techniques.

These companies know and understand that people with acid indigestion hate it with a passion, and want to get rid of it forever. And even if the consumer suffering from acid indigestion doesn't feel that way, the drug companies try to convince them that acid indigestion is a serious plague that needs to be wiped out. How are their marketing techniques letting the customer know that their product will solve the acid indigestion problem?

First of all, they make it appear as if you can't live a normal life if you suffer from acid indigestion (ex: people eating at a Mexican Restaurant, but can only drink the water, not actually order anything off the menu).

Some people feel as if their life has been ruined by acid indigestion. In those cases, drug companies convey their sympathy and understanding.

Convincing people that they are suffering is one way to get a consumer started on the path of buying your product, and ultimately fulfilling the need a person has to make life easier.

Now I'm not saying to go out and create suffering where suffering doesn't exist. But keep in mind that everybody suffers, and what one person considers suffering may not even be something worth note by another.

If you can relieve suffering (even if that suffering is something minor), or at least make people forget about it for awhile, then you will have fulfilled a very strong need.

And, if you convey understanding and sympathy, that is the beginning of building trust between yourself and your customers. Trust is an underrated and very important part of Internet marketing.

Next month: more about making life more enjoyable

Next to having an actual product to sell, one of the most important aspects of your business is having some method of accepting payments from your customers.

Over the years, the convenience of credit and debit cards has caused them to increase in popularity. And on the Internet, where conducting cash transactions is both difficult and time consuming, credit/debit cards have become the way business is conducted.

Research by Cyber Dialogue has shown that over 19 million consumers used credit cards for online transactions in 1999 alone. That's more than double the previous year's number.

By 2000, 120 million consumers were shopping online. About 75% of North American shoppers used credit cards, while the majority of the remainder chose to pay via bank drafts and electronic checks.

Clearly, if you want to attract the 75% of consumers that pay with a credit card, you need to accept their preferred method of payment. In other words, if you're not accepting credit cards, you could be missing the opportunity to triple your sales!

But if you've ever looked into getting your own merchant account, you know how intimidating -- and how expensive -- that can be. Thanks to the growth of third-party payment processing solutions however, accepting credit cards no longer needs to be something to shy away from. Third-party merchant services have matured into an easy-to-use and inexpensive industry thanks to growing demand and competition.

One of the more obvious payment solutions available is PayPal. With over 40 million registered users worldwide, it is the most used method of conducting transactions through online auctions, and has a large following of traditional merchants online.

However, because of the fact that in order for you to be able to receive payment via PayPal, the payer must also be a registered PayPal user, this is best used as an alternative payment solution. Of course, if you sell exclusively through online auctions, then having PayPal as your sole method of accepting credit card payments probably won't hurt your business too much.

If you're selling through a web store or have a mail order business however, then having a way for your customers to easily pay with a credit or debit card without requiring that they be registered members of a third-party payment service is going to have a large impact on your bottom line.

Companies like ProPay are an excellent alternative to having to open your own merchant account.

ProPay makes accepting credit cards easy and inexpensive without any complicated contracts or equipment to buy or lease.

There are also no monthly fees, no statement fee, no gateway fee, no terminal lease, and no annual contracts. One minor disadvantage to ProPay is that payments are not processed automatically (this is why there's no gateway fee). You would need to process each payment manually-a minor inconvenience for the extra business it is sure to bring you.

To learn more about ProPay's services, click here.

PayQuake is another excellent third-party merchant service. PayQuake offers three different packages and pricing options to suit your specific needs as a business. Every package comes bundled with a payment gateway, meaning payments can be processed automatically, thus saving you time.

Click here to learn more about PayQuake's services.

Don't dismiss services like PayPal simply because you have the services of ProPay, PayQuake, or USA Card Services. Of the 25% of consumers that don't use credit cards, PayPal may be their only option to send you payment quickly and easily. As such, PayPal should be an additional service to your customers to compliment your main method of accepting payment.

As you can see, there simply is no way around accepting credit cards. If you wish to thrive in business today, accepting credit cards is a service that you can't afford to be without!