How do we know what marketing is?

While reading Tony Neck's book “Zappos - Delivering Happiness,” he drew attention to the phrase that became the key in the book. She said: “Your client himself doesn’t know how lucky he is to work with you. The point is to show him that. ” This phrase became a clue when we began to understand the question: “Why do these cool guys have so few customers?”

Having quite a serious experience in the field of VAS services, we decided to create our own service that would help our clients to send SMS messages. In other words, that annoying advertisement that comes to you on the phone, partly of our own hands. But do not throw stones at us, we are well acquainted with the law on advertising, and are not engaged in spamming. All within the limits of accessible and legal business.

Nobody likes advertising, except for the omnipresent Coca-Cola with its New Year's mood. But the sphere of mobile advertising is booming, and if not we would have occupied it, then someone else would have taken it. So we decided.
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Introduction

It all started with what we thought: “People need another service for sending SMS messages and mobile advertising.” No analysis of the market, no agreements with partners, just a pack of cigarettes, a piece of paper and the belief that we are businessmen with hands from God. Such a naive belief in a brighter future, speaking at conferences, a new BMW and a beautiful wife.

We wrote down the service on the knee, and having developed the tariff scale, we launched the service and waited for the golden mountains and customers who are ready to pay us as if we were a new iPhone. But, as you already understood from my writing, the day passed and the night followed, and our phone was still silent. After three packs of cigarettes and exploring all the sights from the window of our office, it became obvious that we were somehow mistaken.

We spent the whole day to test our service once again for all sorts of errors and interface availability. It seems that the name was the highest degree of epicity, and the service was convenient, from our point of view, but everything was calm and quiet, like in the bed of an old maid.

Becoming

After reading a couple of pompous success stories, we still understood the mistake. Having developed a service that offers a marketing solution for a client, they themselves forgot about their own marketing. To make sure of our guesses, we showed our service to one pragmatic friend. His words sounded like this: “You know, there are big supermarkets, there are small shops, there are merchants on the market, and your service is similar to Bagadul, which offers a wrench in exchange for a bottle of vodka.” In general, technical experts gathered and became involved in the work of marketers and businessmen. And as it turned out, it is not for nothing that significant funds are spent on promotion and advertising.

This is where the analysis of our competitors began, the comparison of our tariff grids. Someone even began to think about the model of perception and attracting customers, as well as about another demonology, which is practiced by cunning entrepreneurs. There were very stupid ideas and a desire to quit. I did not want to engage in nonsense, I wanted to code and change the world.

However, after some time we came to the conclusion: it is necessary to develop a website that will be understandable to customers, and to hire a cool SEO - a specialist who would be engaged in the promotion of a turnkey. We ourselves remembered the course of management from the university and began to invent our mission, slogan, unique outline and so on. But everything turned out to be much more “elegant” than we could have imagined.

Exposing

After some time, we launched a new site, filled it with “unique and effective” articles, which ultimately turned out to be the price of 60 rubles per item. But for us it is natural, no one said. And they began to give solid money to promote our SEO-specialist.

Gradually, people began to visit our site, 15-20 people a day, but the conversion was going to zero. Naturally, we began to resent where our money goes. The promotion specialist assured us that everything will be, everything is fine, you need to wait a bit and everything will be. We waited, time was running out, and clients never came to our site.

We decided to consult with one acquaintance, who opened our eyes to all this SEO, as well as the way we were “deceived” by our valiant professional. In short, he took away almost the entire budget for himself, bought on the site several unique articles for 60 rubles from the cheapest exchange and a few leased references worth 500 rubles a month through a sinful seopult. Everything else went into his pocket.

When we, grounded, presented a question to him. He said that SEO is a difficult task, we do not understand anything. And he honestly worked all the money. And, of course, disappeared after our demand to show the real costs.

What happened next

After goodbyes, fights and other troubles, we finally understood how to work with our clients. We decided to make working with our server as transparent as possible for all our potential customers. And you know, everything became simple enough after we understood what to do.

Made an intuitive design. Fully registered all the conditions of cooperation up to the last penny of the commission. We created a whole section with articles that explain the rules of work, our purpose and the benefits that our customers will receive. Instead of meaningless pouring money into some kind of mythical links, they began talking to people, began to take into account opinions and wishes, and the business went uphill. We set up the work of a customer service manager, created a system of discounts and conditions for long-term cooperation, and everything was up to the skis.

We began to spend our budget on real things, and not on some mystique. This gave a significant result and loyal customers.

Right to conclusions

Sometimes the hardest thing is to understand what needs to be done, what the client wants from you, and what you are ready to assume. When the rebus is assembled, everything becomes obvious. In the meantime, it’s unclear how many scammers try to take advantage of your weakness and dissolve you for money.

Ps Now I understand why people do not like SEO-specialists so much.