Just Selling Products Will NOT Inspire Loyalty

Andy Splichal  0:08  

Hello there and welcome to the Make Each Click Count Podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. Today's topic we're going to discuss how just selling products will not inspire loyalty. for over 20 years now I've been working with companies to sell their stuff online. This journey has been interesting with the what in the how I've attempted to sell for my private clients, from floor and wall safes to boat anchors and other boating supplies. From pawn fountains to baseball gear. From high end women's clothing to exotic jewels. From avocado bass tea to CBD chocolate. I've run the gamut in terms of online verticals. For the most, the process of driving traffic is relatively similar, except for CBD chocolate. But don't get me started on that. The level of success a company has selling their products online more times than not comes down to their conversion rates. When working with companies to drive quality paid traffic many times I also will work with companies by offering suggestions that I have found to improve their conversion rates. Making sure key elements are present such as having an easy to navigate website with special attention paid to important elements such as shipping and refund policies, a risk reversal guarantee, and product and website testimonials can be essential factors for increasing conversion rates. In addition, I also recommend the continual testing a variety of elements within a website. I've seen where implementing simple changes such as changing the color on the Add to Cart buttons, and within the shopping cart have had an immediate and substantial impact on conversion rates. And when it comes to your conversion rates, just a small uptick in that number can cause a large increase in overall sales. Imagine you have 1000 customers a day with a 2% conversion rate and an average sale of $75. When you calculate it out, that'd be $1,500 in daily sales generated by 20 orders. Now if you were able to increase your conversion from 2% to 2 and a half percent, you would increase your daily average sales volume from 1500 to 1875. Thus increasing your monthly sales from 45,000 to 56,000. It's almost a 20% increase in overall sales by increasing our conversion by half of 1%. This calculation and the power of the small increase in conversion rate is the reason that I've always have started with conversion rates as the main focus when working to improve a client's profitability. However, last week, I read a line in a book that blew my mind, am I thinking on conversion rates and leads the way to go about how to increase conversion rates. The book was Start with Why by Simon Sinek which I highly recommend, by the way, and the line was this. Though products drive sales, they alone cannot inspire loyalty. I'll say it one more time. Though products drive sales, they alone cannot inspire loyalty. Throughout his book, The premise is for a company to sell their products effectively a company must be able to connect, why they are selling their products with its buyers. When you communicate why you're selling your products, you give your potential customers especially those that connect to your why a reason to do business with you. By establishing this connection, through communicating why you were selling what you were selling, you can distinguish your products from your competitors. Most of what is sold online is what is known as a commodity for those commodities that we sell, many times there are multiple other companies selling the same products, or at least very similar products with no discernible difference between companies. How does the customer decide from which company to buy their product from? Well, number one, you probably guessed it, is price. If a similar product is sold in different stores, customers often decide based on selecting the cheapest price. Number two is trust. If a company doesn't trust that they will get the product in a timely manner, or even if they will get the quality of the product promise, the factor of trust could outweigh a cheaper price. And that is why working on conversion factors such as paying special attention to elements on the website such as your shipping and your return policy, your guarantee policy, website testimonials, all can help improve conversion rates. They work because they help build trust. However, there is one factor that is more powerful than trust, and more powerful even than price leads to a certain degree. And that is loyalty. It is why repeat customers are so valuable to a company. A loyal customer will continue to purchase for the most part without price shopping they competitors because they trust your company to deliver what they are buying. However, their trust becomes even more powerful when they believe in why you are selling what you sell. Let me tell you about a trip I made to the grocery store a few weeks back, went to the grocery store Saturday morning and I was at an eggs and I had promised the family to make breakfast. Typically I prefer to buy organic eggs. In California a bunch of ads ran a few years back showing the cramped conditions of some egg farms. And I always get that picture in my mind of those poor chickens when I'm about to purchase some eggs. However when it comes to mining, so I'm also price conscious. I will typically buy the cheapest priced organic eggs and if the price of the cheapest organic eggs is crazy high, Well then I sometimes will go ahead and sneak a dozen of those egg farm eggs pass my wife at home. Now in this shopping trip, there was an organic egg brand. There was running a special buy one get one free. Normally 699 a dozen right now they were two for 699 or 350 a dozen about the same price is non organic eggs. I purchased those eggs purely based on price because I know who the heck really cares about a brand name of an egg right. When I returned home, I started making breakfast and I opened the egg carton and I discovered there was a small three inch by two inch card that was included. Printed on that card was a small newsletter from Vital Times the organic egg brand that I had purchased. On the front of that newsletter it told the story of this month's featured farm, the Bow Family Farm and the gentleman that runs the farm. Now according to the story of the owner, although he had grown up on a dairy farm, had decided to go into a different path and was a successful engineer. In his early 30s, he was inspired from a documentary detailing deteriorating conditions of food production. And he was so inspired when he decided to leave his position and start a chicken farm dedicated to free range, humanely treated organic egg laying chickens. Together, today with his wife, his children and his parents, they run Bow Family Farms. On the back of this tiny little newsletter Vital Times continued connecting, by showing the bird of the month it was vibrant Vivienne, along with their mission statement, chicken cartoon and some fun chicken facts. Sign of the egg carton was a link to the vital farms website where you could access a 365 degree view of one of their featured farms and all of the happy chickens who live there. Wow. Talk about communicating their why? For me there why connected on a few levels. First, I believe in their core belief of humanely raised chickens. Two, I was inspired by the story of three generations of family members working together on the Bow Family Farm happily raising chickens. Three, I believe in the opportunity that Vital Farms is given to small farms to compete and get their organic, humanely raised fried chicken laying eggs to market where they can compete against much larger, less purposeful egg manufacturers. You also want to know what? Well, the next week when I went to the store I purchased another dozen of Vital Farm eggs. No longer were they on sale, but I did not even look at the price. And this may be an extreme example of communicating their why. But Eggs are an extreme commodity. Just think how many brands of eggs? Can you name off the top of your head? I can only think of one Vital Farms. Now can you see the power of clearly communicating your why? And one more story. And this story is from the end of Simon Sinek Start with Why book. The story talks about a cross country race with a young man named Ben Coleman and Hannah highschool. Ben was living with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a horrible infliction. It's often caused by complications at birth, where there is no cure and the effects last a lifetime. Those with cerebral palsy are significantly affected with a lack of balance and motor skills includes tightening of muscles and joints. And in addition, people with cerebral palsy often have an unsteady gait and their knees knock and their feet drag. However, even with cerebral palsy, Ben was determined to compete running in 5k high school cross country races the beginning of each race as the other round runner speed off, then is left far in the back of the pack struggling to run while occasionally stumbling and even falling. And while the other runners finish in under 20 minutes or at least close to it. Ben's finish time typically is around 45 minutes. He will finish his races bloodied and bruised from falling but continues to press on determined to finish each race. He was not competing against any other runner and steady competes against himself and his ability to finish the race. And every race he runs a funny thing happens though. After they finish, most runners circle back to the course to run behind Ben. Throughout the rest of the race, Ben is the only runner that when he falls, someone will be there to help him up. And when he eventually finishes the race, He also will be the only runner with hundreds of people behind him cheering for him. Stemmons trait to key point not solely with Ben, but about the good of human nature. When you compete against others, no one wants to help you. However, when you compete against yourself, like Ben, everyone wants to help you. A final word communicating your why becomes even more important when you're selling a commodity. If a seller can connect with buyers on why they are selling their level of trust, it's going to shoot through the roof and price largely becomes irrelevant. Of course, you still need to be selling quality products to be successful. And although your products don't have to be the absolute best, they do have to be good and fulfill a purpose. For my earlier story, I'm not saying that I would have ever gone back and bought more vital farm eggs if the first dozen were all rotten. However, if the quality is at least equal to competitors, then connecting on the why is a powerful and effective way to inspire loyalty that goes beyond changing the color of your Add to Cart buttons and even goes beyond price. Now for those of you that are selling your products online, do you communicate your why to your customers? And even more importantly, do you yourself and everyone in your organization know your why? These are important and sometimes soul searching questions, they can take some time to sort through. However by communicating why you sell, what you sell effectively, and connecting with your customer base, you have an opportunity to increase your sales and conversion rates beyond limits. For more information on the power of why check out the book Start With Why by Simon Sinek. Well that's it for today. Remember, if you liked this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave a five star review. And if you're looking for better results from your online marketing request to join Make Each Click Count Facebook group. Remember to stay healthy, keep safe and happy marketing and I will talk to you in the next episode.