Business Article: Creating a sales virus

Now ordinarily you don't want to catch a virus. A virus is something that spreads rapidly from one person to many others and each person who catches the virus from you is also likely to spread the virus to many others.

A virus grows and spreads exponentially and very quickly gets out of control.

Just imagine what would happen if your sales spread like a virus. What if each of your customers spread your sales virus to several other people, who came in a bought something and then went out and spread the virus to numerous others? Do you think that might solve some of your business problems?

The question is: How can we create a sales virus?

This question in part, is answered by a great quote I heard recently. I'm not sure who the author was, but I think this quote is both simple and profound. It goes like this:

"Satisfied customers buy from you. Delighted customers sell for you."

In most businesses, the sales and marketing process focusses on the task of getting a sale or getting a new customer. Some more proactive companies take this a step further and develop systems around enhancing their relationship with their customers and increasing customer loyalty.

Very few however, take their marketing processes as far as creating a band of loyal customer evangelists who are so delighted with the company that they actively tell everyone they know what a great company they have found.

Marketing seems to be an area of business that most business owners struggle with. Even large businesses with large teams of people in their marketing departments struggle to come up with good campaigns and promotions that attract the attention of sufficient numbers of buyers to be called winning campaigns.

One of the reasons is that marketing media have become so diluted over the years. Where a few years ago we had three TV stations vying for attention, with pay TV we now have dozens. People used to read newspapers more frequently. Now news is gleaned from many avenues such as internet sites and email.

Communication methods have increased so much that it is now difficult to communicate with the masses. Communication is so much more focused around one on one conversations. Old marketing methods are not only less effective, but when they are delivered, they are delivered to a much more resistant market.

If it wasn't hard enough already for small and medium size businesses, marketing just got harder over the last ten years or so.

One approach that could be taken to increase marketing effectiveness is to try harder to reach more people with your sales message. The problem with that approach is that it is so much more costly to achieve the same results. If we accept the two negatives in this equation;

that each marketing communication reaches fewer people and;
that people are more resistant, therefore we get fewer positive responses per communication, we have to achieve many more communications that we previously did, just to get the same number of sales.

This will cost more money to achieve, so our cost per sale has increased significantly if we use this approach to combating the problem.

Is there another solution?

Another approach we could take is to increase the quality and impact of our communications. This is about increasing our conversion rate by getting more positive responses from each communication.

To achieve more positive responses we need to get more people to listen to each communication and then get more of them to act positively on that communication message. This process too, can be very expensive. Developing attention getters that mean people will listen to your message is one thing, but the cost of increasing the quality of communication is another.

One of the major factors involved in increasing results this way is the element of trust. If you can increase the level of trust in your audience, they will be more willing to listen to your messages and more of them will believe the messages enough to take action.

One way that many companies try to increase trust is through a process called "branding." Branding is about imprinting the identity of your company in the minds of your market. For companies to use advertising and promotional vehicles to achieve the level of frequency and reach that would be required to achieve even a moderate level of recognition to develop a known brand is a very expensive exercise.

Only large companies can afford to attempt branding in this way.

So what can a small or medium-sized business do to achieve a large increase in sales, or to create a sales virus as we posed earlier, without having to spend huge amounts on advertising? The answer revolves around the quote we used earlier. Don't just develop your marketing processes to get new customers, but keep going with the processes to convert your customers into evangelists for your products or service.

How do you do that?

It's not enough to just satisfy your customer. That way you have to sell one at a time and keep working to find new customers. If you really want your customers to become evangelists for you, you must do much more than merely satisfy them.

You must deliver so much unanticipated value that they are so extremely delighted by the whole experience of dealing with your company and using your products that they just can't help but talk about it to everyone they know.

Unfortunately, most business owners are too short sighted to see that if they pile on value after the purchase takes place, that unanticipated value will create so much goodwill that your customers will not merely add some sales through normal word-of-mouth, they will create a stampede of new customers who then catch the virus to create another stampede in an ever increasing manner.

I hear you saying that this all sounds good in theory, but what are some practical ways you can achieve this? "After all, it sounds like you're asking me to give away much of the hard earned profit from each sale."

OK, I admit it costs something to get this process going. But if you think about it, if you can create a sales virus, you can stop spending money on any other form of advertising which is getting dubious results. So instead of spending money on advertising, invest your funds in giving your customers massive unexpected value. This will achieve two things.

First, it will blow away your competition that is trying to compete with you on price.

Second, it will create a voluntary sales force that you don't have to pay much to send a continuous stream of new customers your way. Here are the steps you need to take:

Create a buying experience for your customers where they receive "over the top" service and lots of unexpected value after they pay their money.
Stay in touch with your customer after the sale and make sure they are absolutely delighted with their purchase. If they aren't, do whatever you can to fix the problem and then do something extra to make them even happier.
Find a way to give them even more value if they refer a specific number of friends to you. It should be more than one, but could be 2, 3, 5 or as many as you are game to ask for.
Develop a strategy to "lock" your customers into your product or service. Make it too difficult for them to switch from buying from you to buying from a competitor.
Get feedback from your customers about what else they would like you to do for them and then make the changes needed to see they get what they want, and more.
Keep finding new ways to add value to the buying experiences of your customers. Use methods that have high perceived value but are low cost to you. Be creative.

Conclusion

If you are still using 20th century marketing methods, you are way behind the game. The world has moved on. You need to catch up. Mass marketing to strangers is no longer very effective. People are more skeptical and resistant of marketing messages and are spoilt by choice. You have to stand out and be trusted to achieve results. Use your assets to greatest effect.

These days, your customers are your greatest asset. Use them to sell for you. Make sure they are so delighted with your offerings that the trust they have built with their friends becomes an asset you can tap into. These days, win-win relationships don't go far enough. Look to create win-win-win relationships that are self propagating.

You never know, you might create a sales virus that means you never have to worry about finding new customers again. Your only worry will be how to keep giving over the top value to keep the flow increasing.