The very nature of services, having an experience, makes it more complex to promote. Once people have it, it's finished. By giving samples or material that will help people decide to buy is essential in the service marketers kit.
The simple answer is to make them concrete. What? You say.
How can a service be concrete? The very nature of a service is that it is intangible. It is an experience. Something consumed between two or more parties. The very nature of services means they are more complex to market and gain sales.
Service firms over the past thirty or so years have trialled various ways to add concreteness to the experience of a service. Having some concreteness also has an impact on your pricing. It is more difficult to receive payment once the service has been consumed than before.
Being concrete means you can separate your promotion from delivery. Creating this boundary makes if easier for you not give away your jewels!
Your clients can also refer others to your concrete elements which makes giving referrals much easier.
Here are three broad ways to make your service concrete.
1. Offer taster sessions where you exhibit your skills and talents in such a way that your prospect is able to gauge whether you can help them. There are many ways to achieve this, including complimentary sessions, teleseminars, live training events, speaking events, exhibitions and conferences.
Yes, you will be encouraging prospects in the sales process. This is about leading your prospects to buying not selling to them. There is a difference.
2. Having a give away eg report, white paper, workbook etc. boy choosing your topic carefully, you can demonstrate your expertise and approach so the prospect wants to learn more. This can also be extended to creating home study programmes, seminar programmes and e-courses.
Creating products is a great way to appeal to more people, have an additional revenue stream. But your products are informed by your client experience as well as informing your 1on1 client experience.
3. Your processes help the prospect understand more about your firm. Processes are everything related to the presenting the service, making the sale and the after sale service experience. At each point, the prospect can choose to stop the process if they become unhappy about how they are treated. So, spend time creating your terms and conditions, your contract and what communications they will receive throughout the process.
Even if you think that all this will be done over the phone or in person, being consistent with your processes will help with your delivery and with encouraging referrals.
Here are actions you can take:
1. List all the ways you make your services concrete. Are they working? If not, find out why and make changes.
2. Identify new ways to make your services concrete... and don't forget to evaluate success.
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