Page 79 - Lighting Magazine March 2019

yesteryear are being replaced with authentic trust- building actions.
The marketing activities that build trust with cli- ents in 2019 and beyond will happen long before they enter your showroom — and even before they think of you as a “trusted resource.” This is why the e orts of the marketing and sales team must be in unison from product knowledge to rapport building and of course sharing your company’s unique story.
truSt the exPert
When a showroom and their team members actively demonstrate that they are legitimate experts in their elds, they create trust in the marketplace. Buyers have been increasingly exposed to undereducated, non-motivated sales clerks in every industry. They waste the client’s precious time, and this has eroded their faith to that of an untrusting pessimist who sees no value in the old sales interaction. This negative a itude combined with lower foot tra c requires that we communicate trust to the client and reach them where they are and before we meet them.
“Reach” once meant placing big display ads in the newspaper, airing TV commercials, and posting billboards. The public is increasingly becoming digitally dependent, which means digital platforms are the rst place to begin building client trust.
A simple strategy that blends the e orts of sales and marketing in a way that builds trust is by answering typical buyer questions before they ask them. These questions include the merchandise you bring to market, the reasons why you beat your competitors, and how your particular sales process works to bene t them. The answers you provide should be shared on all the digital platforms you use as well as on your website.
When consumers want to know anything on any subject, the place they visit rst is Google.
“Google has 3.5 billion daily searches, which equates to 1.2 trillion searches per year,” according to Internet Live Stats. Thus, when clients want to know what products are available, they search for it — and when they are engaged in their search, they also want to discover the reasons why they should buy the item. As modern merchants we must make the information available that expresses why to buy from you rather than a competitor.
These client searches launch their digital education on style, color trends, and of course pricing. Providing transparent answers to all the “Why” questions is how to build digital trust. Since
this generation tends to be skeptical, expect that they will fact-check your statements and claims right in front of you, phone in hand, when visiting your showroom. When the answers to their discovery questions are the same on both your digital marketing platform as it is in person from your sales team, trust grows exponentially.
Use your speci c content creation to educate customers and provide solutions to typical issues that will guide them through potential problems and pitfalls. This paves the way to building client trust. While this might seem like a simple approach, I assure you it takes hard work, planning, and superb communication skills.
Be their cOunSelOr
The Millennial market, and the generations riding
along with them, come to the showroom seeking
guidance and con rmation of the information they
found out on their own. Two speci c characteristics
drive this group to a brick and mortar store; they are
there to trial and test what they have seen online,
or they have a problem that they have not found a
solution for online. The issues they have will vary as Market widely as the clients you a ract, but the uni er is
they want you to be their problem-solver.
The con dence that showrooms are creating digi- tally ma ers. Each e ort that demonstrates that the showroom’s sta are experts will solidify the need for clients to go to the “trustworthy” brick-and-
mortar showroom to complete their quest. Too!
March 2019 | enLIGHTenment Magazine 75
on the Mark
The Millennial
Strategy Appeals to Boomers,