Walk This Way to a Winning Offer

I live in a pretty unusual neighborhood…for a car-dependent city like Little Rock.

I can walk to any number of necessary businesses, from a chiropractor to a dentist, to a vet for my dogs.

A grocery store.

Churches representing several denominations.

Three banks.

Plus, we have a high street lined with boutiques bursting with clothes, paper goods, handmade soaps, a decent variety of locally-owned restaurants, plus my favorite…a shop called Domestic Domestic that features a tightly curated, made in America product line that is always on point for grabbing a gift for my husband.

So you can imagine that when people say they want to move to the Heights…the ability to walk places is one thing I could count on hearing time and again back when I sold real estate.

But the funny thing is, despite the ‘hood’s enviable WalkScore™…no one actually walks.

And if you are taking your prospects at their word for what they want or who they think they are?

You’re going to bring a lot of offers to market that underperform. For your customers and for your bottom line.

If you simply take a 30,000 ft approach to getting to know your prospects…you’ll convince yourself you see a lot…but you’re gonna miss so many pertinent details.

So how do you drill down and get closer to where the real truth lives?

Why do my neighbors say they want to walk?

Maybe it is because they want to signal that they are sophisticated. Urban (and urbane). Concerned about the planet.

When you are putting together offers to people, you absolutely need to understand their motivations.

But you have to understand why they actually don’t do what they say they specifically want to do.

Maybe they don’t walk because the reality of schlepping home a week’s worth of groceries from the Kroger is pretty unappealing. Generally, affluent people don’t walk to do errands here. Why leave the Lexus in the driveway?

The typical suburban lifestyle and walking don’t really mesh up all that well in the end.

But a good marketer doesn’t fall into the trap of dismissing their ideal customer’s aspirational image of themselves, either.

Then what exactly do you do?

Good marketers go where their best prospects go to let their hair down and where they seek the input of other people who have dreams, aspirations, passions, and problems just like them.

A good long-tail Google search can land you right where your best customer lives online. It could be a niche forum, a subreddit, or a YouTube channel…honestly, it could be anywhere. They don’t call it the world wide web for nothing.

The more you know about your ideal prospect and how they talk about themselves and their pain when they feel safe to let their guard down, the better prepared you are to respectfully reflect their language back to them. To use it to create an entire buyer’s journey that sees them, anticipates their needs, and speaks directly to them at every single touchpoint…from homepage headline to the email your e-comm platform fires off when they finally buy what you’re selling.

If you want to increase connection, conversion, and customer loyalty, you’ve got to come closer…or you’re bound to miss that certain something your ideal prospect needs to hear from you to do business with you.