Post sales marketing

I’ve spent over 15 years working on marketing and sales with local and international organizations, looking for ways to integrate these two worlds.

In the last 10 years, I’ve found a good concept with the idea of the full journey, the buyer journey before and after purchase, from awareness to advocacy. I loved it, even if it was a bit complicated to apply for real.

Most companies focus on pre-sales marketing, allocating all efforts and resources to it. When you lack customers, it seems the obvious choice, right?

Then I realized something easy, maybe even trivial, yet super powerful, and I want to share it with you.

Why don’t you just make desirable to become your customer?

Davide Berardino, yes, it’s me

Really, why don’t you make desirable for anyone to become your customer, no matter what he or she buys?

That’s a critical mind switch, isn’t it?

Ok, but how do you make it desirable for customers to become customers of your brand? Well, I’m happy you asked it. This is the question marketers should ask themselves, the Question with the capital Q.

Asking yourself good questions is a good starting point, but I don’t want to leave you alone trying to find the answers, I also want to share some possible answers with you as well, even if it will depend on your business, your niche and your values.

Forget to sell, get a bond with your customer.

Davide Berardino, yes, I love quoting myself

Usually when it comes to after sales, the efforts for the brands are on cross selling, fidelity programs and customer satisfaction. Nothing wrong with this, apart this is yet selling.

What does it take to get a bond with anyone? Well, asking questions and be eager of learning from the answers. Talk the love languages.

Don’t pretend you know what the customer wants, and even if you know it, ask for it. Conversation is not just about getting to the point, sometimes what you want is the pleasure of talking and being heard, other times you just want to get there? How to know how to behave? Well, ask it!

Do you want to be helped, heard or being hugged?

Charles Duhigg, Supercommunicators

In the book “Supercommunicators”, Charles Duhigg explores the art of effective communication, focusing on how to connect deeply with others by recognizing three types of conversations: practical (you want to be helped), emotional (you wanted to be heard), and social (you want to be hugged).

Ok, but how to make desirable to become your customer?

The easiest thing you can give a customer is a feeling of belonging. Tell him or her that who buys from you become a member of the group and give it a name.

For example, if you are a brand of working clothes and your values are about strong men and resistant clothing you may want to call Power Workers the member of your buyers. Isn’t it already more tempting to become a customer of this brand, even if you haven’t seen any product yet?

Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging but often barriers to it.

Brené Brown, professor at the University of Houston and TED Talk Speaker

And well, this is of course just a starting point. Image then, the more you buy, the more benefits you can get. Just like frequent flyer programs for airlines.