There’s one marketing mistake costing businesses and nonprofits new customers and new donors. Are you making that mistake? Watch the video to find out.
Full transcript below.
Full Transcript
There’s one critical mistake that I consistently see marketers, business owners, nonprofits make when it comes to marketing and communication. And because they’re making this mistake, they’re missing opportunities to win customers, to win donors.
Hi, my name is Steve Phipps. I’m with Wayfind Marketing, and this is a marketing tip for you.
Now the mistake that they’re making, the thing that’s keeping them from winning more customers, more donors, is they’re not taking into account the process of building a relationship. Now this is a three-part process. This is a natural process that we go through especially when we’re building a relationship with a business, or a product, or a service, or a nonprofit. And by following these three steps, you’re going to increase the likelihood that you’re going to win more business, that you’re going to increase your donor base.
Now the first step is curiosity. Now the first stage of a relationship is there’s curiosity. We want to interest people in what we do, and if we skip this step, if we go to where there’s a deeper level of commitment, we’re going to alienate people because there’s no trust. So this is the stage where there’s just sort of this get-to-know each other kind of a, it’s almost like a dance.
Now the second step, so first is curiosity, number two is engagement. Now this is where we start to connect and we start to be able to build some trust and credibility, and we’re starting to build the formation of a relationship. Now this could be happening very quickly. This could be happening on your website. This could be happening just in the course of a conversation with someone who you meet. But engagement, again, is where we’re starting to build this level of trust. Now they’re asking questions, they want to know how can we solve their problem? How can we help them achieve their goals?
So the first step is curiosity. Number two is engagement. Number three is commitment. This is where they willingly take that next step. Now it could be a small commitment, it could be they just give you their email address on your website, they download a PDF. That’s fantastic. That’s a small commitment, but it’s a commitment. A bigger commitment is maybe they go ahead and buy your service or product or maybe, depending on the nature of it, they schedule an appointment or a demo, but they take that next step.
If you skip these steps, if you try to go straight to commitment with somebody that doesn’t know you so there’s no curiosity, there’s no engagement, so there’s no trust, you’re going to miss out on opportunities. So make sure your website, make sure your marketing are accounting for those three phases. When you do, you’re going to win more opportunities.
