Last week, Captain Cavedweller and I were on vacation. He is ever so good about taking me to as many shopping malls as I want to visit since we don’t have one in our small town.
While I was running amuck in an “urban living center” (aka snooty strip mall) trying to check out as many stores as possible, he wandered into one and decided to get me a scarf for my birthday. As he was browsing through the options, he said a sales girl approached him.
“Are you looking to update your wardrobe?” the girl asked him.
CC said he looked at her to see if she was joking with him.
She was not.
Totally serious, she asked him again if he needed help “freshening up” his wardrobe.
This would be hilarious just because it is CC in a woman’s clothing store. A burly guy who stands 6’2″ without shoes on.
Seriously? Refreshing his wardrobe?
What made me laugh hysterically is the fact that CC’s fashion choice the entire time we were on vacation was cargo shorts (choose brown, brown or tan), a T-shirt (choose black or blue) and his hiking shoes.
Once I stopped cackling enough I could talk, I asked him what, exactly, the girl thought she could do for him.
He shrugged his shoulders and offered some comment about how she obviously had no idea what she was doing.
That incident made me think about knowing your customer.
You can’t use the same line on everyone because it just doesn’t work. Like the salesgirl using a line that probably works great on some of the customers that come in her store, she tried to apply it to someone who might have been her customer if she’d offered a proper approach.
Had she approached CC and said something like, “Are you looking for a gift?” he would have said yes and she could have probably talked him into any number of things.
Instead, he deemed her an idiot and was all done with the store.
When you are promoting and marketing your books, do you know your customer? Do you approach everyone with a one-size-doesn’t-fit-all line?
Find out exactly who you are trying to reach, who is buying your books. Do your homework and research, then come up with a well-crafted, simple approach for each group.
When you put a little time and effort into knowing who exactly you are reaching out to, you’ll get much better results.
