How To Gain Unfair Advantage Over Your Competitors Instantly. 1.0

This is the Cornerstone of Marketing in Any Business

The cornerstone of your marketing plan should be to educate your client. You first educate them on your product or service.

Let's say you sell ovens. All of the interesting details regarding the construction and function of your oven should be included in your advertising and promotional material. Next, you should have a booklet or report on how to save on home costs that is generic and can be used in a variety of promotions. Finally, you could have a report on how to buy or what to look for in an energy-efficient oven, or an even broader book on home construction or home budgeting that only touches on oven and baking.

In other words, you educate them on your product and your firm; you educate them on the field in general in a way that's useful to them, and you broadly educate them on indirectly related subjects, which has the effect of endearing you to them.

One of the saddest marketing mistakes I see is the failure of businesses to educate their customers about the unique advantages offered them. If you've reviewed 100 different manufacturers of the products you sell, let your customers know. It'll impress them that you've screened out products that don't have the quality, endurance, warranty, manufacturing support, service guarantees, or dependability you know they want.

Perhaps your guarantee is three times longer, or covers five times more problems than your competitors' guarantees. Your customer won't know that unless you tactfully point it out.

When you educate your customers, you'll see your profits soar. Think about yourself: When you buy or consider buying an item or service - for yourself, your home, your family, as a gift, or for your business - you often don't know as much as you would like about the item. If you have unanswered questions about a product, you're less likely to shell out the money to buy it. 

When a company or salesman takes the time and initiative to objectively educate you on all the products in the field in which you're considering making a purchase, it gains your trust and favor. Education is a powerful marketing technique. Educate your prospective buyer about everything (including a few of the bad or less positive aspects of your product or service) and you'll sell to almost twice as many people as you do now.

This one concept - educating your customers - will gain you an inordinate advantage over your competitors.

+Seun Osewa +Linda Ikeji