People Watching
Posted On: 2006-11-21
It sure beats the movies any day
Yesterday I talked about using words and phrases that are understood by the greatest number of people to help increase your sales. I suggested that if you were a little isolated from people then perhaps you should think about going out and listening to people as they talk to each other to make sure that you're talking in their language.
I wasn't suggesting that you pry into their private lives but just listen to the words and phrases they use in every day conversation. Steve and I often do that when we're at our favorite cafe or down at the pub having a drink and it helps us keep in touch with the words that people use.
Now I want to suggest that you do something else to keep in touch with people. I want to suggest that you go people watching. Writers do it all the time, they watch what people do because it helps them construct their stories and plots in a realistic way and it helps them create plausible characters in their novels.
Some marketers also go people watching and Steve and I do it quite often too. For a marketer one of the best places to go people watching is in supermarkets. You don't have to go into your supermarket or grocery store and wander around doing nothing but watching people. If you try that people begin to wonder about your real motives and before long you could be talking to a policeman.
Instead of being so obvious about it do a little people watching when you're doing your own shopping. Look at the items that attract people. Where are those items situated? What colors are used in the packaging of those items? Is there anything obviously special about those items that might attract people?
Watching people and seeing how they interact with the products they buy will give you some great insight into what attracts people. In a supermarket the products that appear at eye-level will attract the most attention. Some people will look up to shelves just above their regular line of sight but fewer people may seem to look down to the lower shelves and even fewer people seem to actually stoop down to those shelves to select an item.
What does that tell you about the way you market your adult products? Does it give you any ideas on how to make the products you're selling more noticeable and more appealing?
Then go and sit down at the mall and watch people as they walk around. What advertising in windows attracts more people? What products and advertising hold the attention of the shoppers the longest?
Once again, what you observe here will help you pitch your marketing in such a way as to gain the maximum number of sales.
But the malls and the supermarkets are not the only places to people watch. Wherever people gather you can go people watching and you can learn valuable lessons about what makes them tick, what attracts their eye and what makes them think about buying.
Hell you can even gain valuable insights from the way people read a menu in a café and the way they might interact with each other about the meals they want to buy. Just lately Steve and I have been watching couples on holiday - it's pretty easy to do that here because we happen to live in a very popular holiday destination - and we've learnt something very interesting about couples on holiday.
Who do you think makes the money decisions when a couple is on holiday? Who do you think actually carries the money when couples are on holiday? If you think it's the male in a normal hetero couple who carries the money and makes the decisions then I've got news for you ... you're wrong.
In well over 75% of the couples we've observed it's been the female who carries the money and makes the decisions on how the money will be spent. That ties in with some research that was done over 18 months ago. That research found that when it came to buying the big ticket items that couples buy ... cars, furniture, electrical items etc. it was the female in most couples who had the final say and made the ultimate decision.
The clever sales people already knew that and the dumb ones still only talk to the men.
So how does that affect the way you market your products? Are you pitching your sales efforts at the wrong person?
Please don't think that what I've just been talking about only applies to mainstream because it doesn't. The principles that you will learn when you go people watching apply to adult just as much as they do to mainstream.
I've been saying for years that the principles of selling are the same no matter what you are selling and I've yet to see anything that could change my mind. So go people watching, learn from what you observe and apply it to your marketing and you will make more sales.
And trust me ... watching people is much more interesting and absorbing than any movie.