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How to Convince Customers to Buy Today

February 18, 2009 By Joe Rawlinson

Just because your customers need your product or will be forced to buy it later doesn’t mean they will buy from you or buy today. You have to convince them.

Here in the United States, we’re getting rid of our analog television broadcasts in favor of a pure digital signal. Every time we’ve watched TV over the last few months, we’ve been reminded that this change is coming. If we wanted to keep seeing our favorite shows, we’d need to get a converter box for our television.

The government even offers coupons to help offset the cost of a new converter box.

In our home, we’ve got an older television hooked up to an antenna. No satellite or cable service for us. Call me old fashioned if you will, but not before you know I won’t give up my high speed internet connection.

So why didn’t I get that converter box when I first heard about this change?

Procrastination.

I requested a coupon and it never came. Now I hear that the government has run out of funds for these coupons. Result? I wait.

I hear about an extension of the deadline for the analog to digital switch. The result? I wait.

Finally, I’m at the store and I see a display with converter boxes. I figure I’ll have to make the switch eventually, so I buy the box.

When I set up the converter box, the first thing I say to my wife is, “Honey, we’re going to wish we had done this sooner!”

Why? The picture was crystal clear. No more fuzzy channels. No more static. No more moving the antenna around to get a picture. Wow!

If I had known these were the results, I would have switched a long time ago.

Unless your customers know how your product will make their life better, they will delay buying from you or skip the purchase all together.

I suspect that if the commercials announcing this change had highlighted the benefits of switching (like those I experienced) instead of simply saying “Get your box or you won’t be able to watch TV,” they would have been more successful.

For example:

Listen, America! If you get that converter box you can have a crystal clear picture like your neighbor who bought that $2000 TV and pays $200 a month for cable.

Really, it is true! And you only have to pay $50. Don’t wait for the deadline because these boxes will sell out.

Build the desire in the customer, and they will jump at the opportunity to buy your product even if it is government mandated or they’ll have to do it eventually. Make them buy today by instilling in them a desire for a better experience and so they yearn for what you are selling.

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