Home Business Marketing: What are you really selling?

I’ll cut straight to the chase here. While there are a lot of things you need to know about marketing, there is one question you need to answer before you do anything else. It is, without doubt, the most important aspect of both your marketing plan and your home business plan. Drumroll please…

Are You Selling Love or Money? Those are your choices. Your only choices.

Selling Love

The Premise: You are selling something that gives your customer emotional value. It could be sex, it could be safety, it could be the envy of their neighbors. Whatever. It all boils down to love. The vast majority of business-to-consumer items fall into this category.

Soap? Love. You’re selling the feeling of cleanliness, sexiness, smelling good, soft skin, whatever.

Mushroom soup? Love. You’re selling the feeling that your customer is nourishing her family. (You should probably be selling the feeling that she’s nourishing her family better than her neighbor is, but that’s a whole ‘nother article.)

Shiny new car? Love. You’re selling the feeling of power, wealth, prowess, virility, safety.

You heard it here first, people. When is a car not a car? When it’s love. Duh.

Selling Money

The Premise: You are selling something that helps your customer make or save money. If, at the end of the day, your customer will save money or get new business because they bought your product, you are not selling that product. You are selling them cash. The vast majority of business-to-business items fall into this category.

Cheap paper? You’re selling them the cash they’ll save because they didn’t buy the expensive stuff.

Expensive stationery? You’re selling them the new customers they’ll get because they’ve improved their image.

Graphic design? Ditto on the stationery. They don’t look like some bargain-basement Mickey Mouse jackass, so they get more customers, and then they retire in Greece.

Selling Both

Don’t. I know you think your product will make people feel better AND save them money. I know you think you’re the next Donald Trump. Both of these things may be true, but you’re never going to sell anything with that mindset. In your marketing efforts, you want to present one strong message. One. Pick a side.

B2C Example: You sell water softener pellets to homeowners. They have two primary benefits. One, they soften water, making it more drinkable and reducing hard-water related skin conditions. Two, they extend the life of your customer’s water treatment system, saving them money in the long run. Pick one angle. Personally, I’d pick the first.

B2B example: You sell biodegradable packaging products and your target market is small-to-medium sized businesses. You can sell to their love of the environment, or you can sell the idea that using your products will get them more customers. Don’t sell both, or you’ll water down your message. (FYI, I’d sell the latter.)

Tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, we’re going to talk about what to do with this fabulous new insight. You should subscribe. I was going to offer you a money-back guarantee, but you didn’t pay anything. I tell you what. If you hate it, maybe I’ll send you ten bucks.

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By Naomi Dunford