In case you don’t know by now, the business strategy of Twitter marketing has helped many people make millions online.
It’s therefore no surprise that the rise in creators on Twitter continues. The market isn’t saturated yet, but it sure is getting busier and busier by the minute!
As Twitter becomes more popular, new strategies are popping left and right to grow on this platform. The most famous ones, however, remain giving value and selling.
But careful! It’s important to note that these are two different strategies.
A lot of people use one or the other – but those who have mastered using both of them at the same time are having a lot more success than their competitors!
- Giving value vs. selling: what’s the difference?
- How to do give value to encourage sales
- The buyer should still view you as human
- Balancing selling and giving value
Giving value vs. selling: what’s the difference?
Before you can balance giving value and selling together, you first need to figure out what they actually are!
When you are focusing on giving value, your priority is to benefit the customer or client throughout the sales process.
The goal is to put the needs of the customer first, guiding them through the entire process and helping them make an informed decision to best suit their needs.
While you’d naturally prefer than they picked your product, it may not always be the case if you use this type of strategy: you are truly focusing on favoring only the customer.
While it may seem like a counter-intuitive approach, this strategy helps you get a good reputation among your customers about your honesty, which leads to more clients in the long run even if, along the way, your sales may occasionally suffer.
You may still want to stay away from value-based selling, but here’s why it could actually be very advantageous to you:
- Your product will have a clear direction, since your clients will proceed by elimination to decide what to buy and therefore teach you about the specific value of your product.
- It’s a proven strategy for long term clients.
- You build a great reputation and become known not just for your product, but for your great salesmanship.
Giving value to encourage sales
Here are 6 ways to implement the strategy of giving value throughout the sales process:
Think it through
When an indecisive yet picky business person stumbles across your product, they shouldn’t have to think twice before picking it.
Which is why you need to be the first person to have thought about your product thoroughly!
You need to think about the emotions of the buyer’s persona, such as their fears and desires. For instance, many buyers fear wasting time so a product that takes less than 5 minutes to learn how to use would be ideal.
Thinking this way can help you identify the strength and weaknesses of your product.
Now think about your value preposition – what differentiates your product from your competitors? For instance:
- Is it faster?
- More modern and chic?
- Offers a longer term warranty?
These points will help you develop a marketing and sales enablement strategy that shows buyers how your product can help them perform better in that field. It demonstrates that you’ve thought about the needs and feelings of your buyers and have understood your product from their perspective.
Subtle approach
You know those annoying Instagram spam DMs you get asking you to buy their product with a 10% discount? You need to avoid becoming that at all costs!
Starting off with a discount on your product would be like wearing a sign on your head stating “I AM A NEWBIE” – it’s not a good look!
If you’re sending an email or DM, don’t start with a greeting and follow it up with a “Buy now” button.
Instead, here’s how to smoothly pitch your sale:
- Start with the problem your product is targeting WITHOUT mentioning your product in the first few lines – subtlety is everything!
- Talk about why you created your product – back story creates trust!
- If you have a free portion of your course, a free trial of your product, or similar, talk about that.
- Finally, add a link to your product and let the buyers do their own thinking.
You’ve subtly offered some value to your potential customer by pointing out all the problems that your product could solve.
While this approach might not guarantee more customers at first, it ensures you don’t come across as being too pushy and preserves your reputation while spreading the word about your offer.
Keep an eye on the leaders in your market
They are in that position for a reason!
Follow people who have been in your industry for a while and have perfected this value-based strategy. The easiest way to spot someone who has adhered to it is to find the words “the customer is always right” or “your benefit” or “a problem I solved” in their copy – this will lead you to your target.
You don’t have to interact with their profiles since they are still technically your competition, but you can definitely lurk through their old posts and find out how they’ve implemented value-based selling. It can be a great source of inspiration!
However, it’s important to note that this strategy isn’t a one-size-fits-all. It needs to be applied differently in different niches, so you might have to figure that part out on your own!
Pose as a mentor
The best sales pitches don’t look like sales pitches.
For instance, your friend starts talking about this topic that has recently interested them. You don’t think much of it, but the way they seem to know everything about it has you intrigued.
You go home and start searching more about that topic. You come back the next day to continue that conversation with your friend and he is delighted to see that you’re interested.
He starts acting like your educator and tells you more about it.
He then proceeds to tell you about a product related to that topic and you’re so far into its fandom that you want to buy it.
You find out your friend was the creator of that product and instead of feeling like you got scammed or played into, you are impressed and part of this niche!
When it’s well done, giving value feels good for everyone involved!
Why not implement this idea into your socials?
Teach your audience about your niche. Do weekly threads on tips and tricks related to it, offer your own opinion on related topics, become a source of authority and make more and more people interested in what you know so much about!
Bonus tip: to establish authority, create a “my story” thread that features how you got into this community and what sparked your interest to learn more. You can subtly talk about your product in there!
Highlight the benefits of your product
As stated before, you need to be focusing on how your product will benefit your customers – which is why you need to discreetly highlight the benefits of your product to them!
You can do this in a couple of ways:
- Mention a problem people face in your niche at the beginning of your tweet, then trickle down to how you created this product to help out with said problem.
- Alternatively, you can make a list of all the benefits of your product and call them “perfectly curated with you in mind” to create a sense of recognition.
The idea is to imply that your product offers a lot of solutions to people’s problems, rather than directly stating it!
The buyer should still view you as human
You aren’t your product nor are you the services you are providing. You are a human first! It is by always keeping that in mind and working from that idea that this idea of giving value to sell will work.
Balancing selling and giving value
By now, you should have understood that selling and giving value are far from each other.
However, they do coincide when it comes to business.
Here are some ways you can implement both at once:
- Make your product good enough that other products look uninteresting by comparison: the value you offer will work in your favor!
- Make it as beneficial as you can for your followers: by focusing on the interests of your clients, you will eventually see your profits grow even though they aren’t your priority!
- Form a real connection with your clients: Selling value comes with a long term relationship with your customers. It means they can trust you to have their best interest at heart – which in the long term means they will keep coming back to you.
Now it’s your turn to try and use the power of giving value and see how, although it may not feel right at first, this strategy will benefit you and your business in the long term, making you appear more trust-worthy, valuable and understanding than the competition!
