How to sell people something that they don’t need
A brief story about the financial quotient tells us the secrets of marketing
A man wants to start a business and make money, so he asks his friend to help him buy many birdcages of excellent quality at a cheap price from a manufacturer.
But the sales of birdcages are not very good. So he bought a lot of parrots， and claim that anyone who purchased a birdcage can get a parrot for free. But still did not get the expected results.
In desperation, he found a business tycoon for help. The business tycoon told him: “There is an extensive park nearby, where people often take their children to play. You can go there and host a ring toss game.”
Following the advice of the business tycoon, he set up a ring toss game in the park. People can play the ring toss game 20 times for as little as $2, whoever can trap a parrot accurately can bring the parrot home directly. The color of the parrot is bright and beautiful, the children passing by love it. Some people take part in the game, and more and more people come to watch the game. Sure enough, it quickly sold his birdcage out. Because when people get parrots for free, they naturally need to buy a birdcage to bring the parrot home.
This simple brief story tells us:
Demand can be created
With the progress of social development, the material is no longer as scarce as in the past, businesses have to keep on looking for ways to tap customer needs to find their own business opportunities.
In the past, people would drink water when they were thirsty, but now, people drink beverages to quench their thirst, and beverages are the created demand products. A lipstick can be used for a long time, and why do women buy so many lipstick products that look similar in color every year? Why are there products such as contact lenses, aromatherapy, and chewing gum?
Think carefully, these products are those gradually excavated and created needs.
Tips for guiding buying behavior
Created a product demand, merchants will take advantage of the customer’s consumer psychology, guide them to make purchase actions.
- To give people a sense of engagement and accomplishment.
The ring toss game in the story is to guide people to consumption. People always cherish what they struggle to gain. Winning prizes in the game are not that easy, and parrots are so lively and cute.
2. To satisfy consumers “Take advantage” mentality.
Make consumers think they’re buying a great value for money, and they can’t miss such a rare opportunity. Imagine when you see: giveaways, for free, discounts, clearances, five-folds, etc., you are more willing to pay out of pocket.
Identify more profitable opportunities in every aspect of marketing
In the story, the man only wanted to earn money from the birdcage. After launching promotional activities, he also increased his income from the ring toss game. Even if the amount is small, it provides inspiration for money-making ideas.
What about e-commerce platforms
Some successes are difficult to replicate
More and more young people are selling products on Amazon. There are also many videos on YouTube that teach you how to filter data to determine the most popular and best-selling products at the moment, how to place an order on Alibaba, and how to negotiate warehouse and shipping with Amazon.
But they won't tell you to calm down, to identify the risks that may occur in each link carefully. Logistics, exchange rate, product safety, etc. They won’t tell you you need to do a long-term product development plan and marketing plan. And these are the keys to their genuine success. I am afraid in their eyes you are the customer whose demand is created.
Start with simple products
My suggestion is that you can start with some simple products after making sufficient preparations. These products are optimal with the following properties：
- Convenient for long-term storage and low logistics cost
- The field you are familiar with and the product safety is high
- A wide range of potential users and no disputes
- The product’s quality control is simple to grasp
Have a long-term brand plan
If you want to make a lot of money, be sure to build your brand and ask for quality from the very beginning. Look for qualified and reputable manufacturers to cooperate. Registered trademarks for your own brands.
Vigorously develop offline services
In the era of product explosion, the core content of competition in the brand's service. As we told in our previous stories, we are profitable in every aspect of our marketing and services.
Also, when providing offline services to our customers, it also makes it easy to find and create customer needs.
In fact, whether on-line or offline product marketing is to do serious planning. Accurately target your customer base, target customer base needs, and combined with consumer behavior and psychological to design marketing programs, your products will sell well, sell very well.
I will combine real-life cases and share more marketing stories with you in future articles. Let everyone learn and understand more market behavior and understand the culture and wisdom from the East.
