DESIRABILITY

THE FIRST PILLAR OF THE CUSTOMER

 

There are myriad factors which affect an Internet business’s ability to gain and retain customers, but there are three important pillars which are necessary to support what an entrepreneur is building. The first of these is the subject of today’s blog. That pillar is desirability.

The first and most important thing for an internet entrepreneur—or any entrepreneur—to understand is the demand for his business. Whether the product in question is an object or a service, no one will buy it if no one wants it. The Zizzer-Zoof merchants from the classic entrepreneurial treatise, Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book, left this advice unheeded, and sold no seeds because they were unneeded. Before investing in the promotion and sale of a product, an entrepreneur ought to make himself certain that a market exists, otherwise he may find himself to-ing and fro-ing pointlessly.

The first thing to investigate, then, is the potential market. How many people really feel that a particular problem is egregious enough to spend time or money on your product to solve it? How many of them already use an alternative solution? Is your solution better, and in what ways? These and hundreds of other questions need answered before recklessly plunging ahead.

The second item to consider is how to make your product more desirable than it is. There are many ways to do this, ranging from simply making it pleasing to the eye to finding a method that makes even using it a blast. Teaming up with existing products, sweetening the pot, finding additional uses, and many more techniques will make your product sell like hotcakes, provided you know what to focus on when considering these options.

The process of ensuring an audience is difficult, but it is enlightening. Once you have found a market and optimized your product, you will begin to work on the next pillar of the customer: Visibility. For more on that, I’ll see you next week!