Why clever marketing only gets you so far

Over-delivering on your promise goes a long way with your ideal clients. The benefits to your business are two-fold. Here is why:

This past weekend a friend and I had planned for a nice brunch at a new neighborhood restaurant that had caught our attention because of their spectacular Instagram feed.

A picture speaks louder than a thousand words and we were so impressed by what we saw, that we just had to check it out. The place looked exactly like we had seen online and we couldn’t wait to make our selection from the healthy menu.

As we were perusing it my friend asked “Where is the food?” Turns out the actual food selection of the rather large menu was condensed to a handful of dishes, the rest was mostly juices and fancy drinks. After looking at the limited options she asked “Do you want to leave and go somewhere else?”

We decided to stay. What got us in the door was the power of clever marketing and great branding. Don’t get me wrong the place delivered on the ambiance but not on the main promise of why we were there: the food itself, at least not in terms of variety.

First impressions matter, no doubt about it. They are what peek people’s interest or in our case what got us in the door.

But you see clever marketing only goes so far.

It sets the stage and raises the expectations but then you got to deliver on the promise. If it turns out to be a smokescreen, it turns people off and it’s not likely they’ll come back and they’ll probably spread the word, too. In this day and age word of mouth is one of the most powerful advertising tools out there. It can literally make or break your business.

I work in the movie industry and I know a thing or two about the power of clever marketing. Yes you can get people into theaters with a fancy trailer that just shows the highlights of the film. But beware if the movie is not good, word of mouth spreads like wildfire and you are done. Finito!

It’s no different in the entrepreneurial world. But without a big advertising budget you have to work a lot harder on making that impressive first impression that has you stand out in the sea of many and gets your people in the door.

Let’s say you use a Facebook ad as the entry into our sales funnel. It has to be pretty rockin’ to stand out in the crowded news feed stop your tribe from scrolling and get them to click on it.

Once they are on your landing page you are up against the next hurdle. Is it immediately clear to them what benefit they are getting from taking the action you want them to take? If not, they’ll click over to the next page and you just lost them. (The attention span online is now just 3 short seconds, can you say blink of an eye?)

And then you got to actually deliver on the promise you made. If they opt into your list and are not getting the value you promised, they’ll unsubscribe when they see your next email in their inbox.

You got to up the ante on delivering on your promise if you want to get them interested in the products or services you are offering.

This is where I see so many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They are making the offer too quickly. Remember people buy from those they know, like and trust. You got to build up that trust factor first by … you guessed it providing and over-delivering on the value. It might even feel to you that you are giving your best stuff away.

But that is just the thing, you are supposed to give some of your best stuff away especially if you know they can quickly implement it and get results. This is actually what creates the trust factor . Your prospects are thinking to themselves. “Wow if the free stuff is that good, I wonder what the paid stuff is going to be like.“

And once they start working with you and are getting results, they will not only come back and buy from you again but they will also start referring people to you. You see how over-delivering on your promise goes a long way?

But you see clever marketing only goes so far.

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