How to effectively sell a product
to any audience?

Imagine you are browsing the internet and come across an advertisement. It features an offer from an online foreign language school. If you haven't recently planned to learn a language, you would simply scroll past the banner.
Targeting a large and unfamiliar audience, as with this advertisement, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. The chances of the audience responding are very low.
For the online school, you were part of a cold audience. You don't know the company, are unfamiliar with their product, and hadn't even considered learning Italian, for example. Such an audience type is the most challenging and vast, as you know as little about the customer as they know about you.
Any potential client can be segmented. Everyone has their own goals and needs, and you tailor your approach to meet these, selling your product accordingly. Depending on the segment, you choose your subsequent plan of action.

Let's start by examining the different types of audiences.

A cold audience is one that does not know your product and has never interacted with you.

The cold segment includes people who have not yet clearly identified their problem. They come from targeted advertising set up according to general human parameters. Therefore, this audience does not yet know that they need your product.

Working with cold traffic is much more challenging than with any other type. It is the most expensive to target because, firstly, it is necessary to warm up the client and generate interest. Secondly, it's essential to build trust. And this requires time, employee resources, and additional investments.

A warm audience is one that knows you and shows interest in the product, but is not yet ready to buy.

People in this segment recognize their needs and are looking for a solution. Such customers need to be convinced that your product is essential for them.

The warm audience includes subscribers, website visitors who come with a specific query, as well as participants in contests or webinars. These customers come from contextual advertising, as they independently formulate a query using keywords.

Warm clients are observing and considering; they still want to buy the product, but there are reasons why they haven't purchased yet. The task of the marketing and sales departments is to understand these reasons and adjust their marketing and sales strategies accordingly.

A hot audience is one that knows you and your product. They are ready to buy, but something prevented them from making a decision.

For example, website visitors who showed serious interest in your product, wrote to you, and asked for details, but disappeared at the payment stage.

The hot customer segment is the most valuable and least numerous, as it's easiest to lead them to a purchase. They come from well-tuned contextual advertising, which is more precisely targeted to their request.

It's also important not to forget about existing customers. People who have bought from you and are satisfied. This audience can be sold additional products, and notified about new items and offers.

It's essential to see the difference between audiences, segment them, and sell to each with a specific approach.
The main rule: for cold readers, we carefully warm up the content; for warm ones, we beautifully present it; for hot ones, we sell attractively, and for existing customers, we appetizingly remind them.

Since a cold audience doesn't know you, the first step is to hook them and attract their attention. This can be done using:

• Bright and unique banners and headlines;
• Short but clear offers;
• Interesting posts.

In this way, you gain the interest of a new website visitor or social media subscriber. Now, it's necessary to retain the client, gradually warming them up.
Talk about yourself, your product, and its features. Show your best content. Write about what interests people, so that each time the client's desire to learn about your product increases.
Also, engage with your audience. For this, invite them to social networks, track reactions to various publications. Where there are more clicks, there is successful content.
Don't forget to motivate people to subscribe to your newsletter, so they don't forget about you and can easily revisit your website or profile.

The main task in selling to a warm audience is that you need to help them make a choice, prove your competence, and motivate them to purchase. This can be achieved in three stages.

Describing Benefits. A warm client knows you and has an idea about your product, so it's time to proceed with the arguments. Explain why exactly you are the best to meet their needs, not your competitors. Show the benefits and advantages the client will gain. For example, use a comparative table.

Social Proof. In this case, it's appropriate to attach reviews, show quality certificates, and your case studies. You can involve a blogger or an opinion leader who will talk about purchasing your product. Native selling, without aggressive calls to action.

Free Offer. You can give a warm client a small product: a test drive, a trial lesson, a checklist, or a diagnostic. If your product solves the client's problem, it will be extremely difficult for them to refuse it. If a small gift meets the need, imagine how good the main product is!

All work with a warm client is based on constant interaction with your brand. If you are in the field of online education, then when the word “knowledge” comes up, you should come to the client's mind.

The beauty of a hot audience is that they already know everything. They know about your advantages, the price, and other key qualities. Therefore, there are two paths:

• Direct them to purchase, if they haven't already;
• Show something that will engage and encourage them to buy again.

You can direct hot traffic directly to a landing page for purchasing or to a form for registration, booking, and payment. Create a sense of scarcity and set tight deadlines for the purchase to speed up decision-making.

For those who have already purchased from you, you can talk about the arrival of new products, the introduction of new services, or the expansion of the range.

Content for a hot audience should be atypical. They will quickly get bored of constantly reading about your advantages. Therefore, you can talk about the latest news, employee successes. It's also interesting to observe behind-the-scenes and work processes.

Each type of traffic should have its own path. Customers from cold, warm, and hot segments are at different stages. Your goal is to gently prepare them, changing the temperature without abrupt fluctuations.

In different niches, the audience varies in their level of awareness.
In a broad niche, the product may be frequently consumed and well-known, so the customer is warm towards the product. But they are cold towards your brand. Among competitors, they will choose the one they know better.

• When selling to a buyer unfamiliar with you, consider this nuance. In such cases, emphasis should be placed on talking about your brand. This can include the qualifications of your employees, the company's experience in the market, and reviews.
• Segmentation helps to avoid losing a customer.

I'll give an example from the beauty niche.

Case Study
A company used a uniform scheme for attracting customers. They regularly managed social networks, posted useful and entertaining content, and sent out newsletters. After the introduction of newsletters, people started unsubscribing in droves.

Why?
A detailed analysis revealed that the audience, when entering the funnel through advertising/social networks, was not segmented. There was no division into interest groups. Each customer had a different goal, but the newsletter was the same for all. Therefore, people lost interest, found the regular messages annoying, and started to leave. Thus, the business was losing customers.
A marketing strategy was implemented to work with the database. After which, the client not only regained their subscribers but also saw a 20% increase in requests and a 10% increase in sales over the month.
A common problem for entrepreneurs is putting in a lot of effort but seeing little in sales. They run social networks according to a prepared content plan, know their competitors inside out, and have a quality product. But sales are lacking.

What's the problem?
It will be extremely difficult for the business owner to understand the reason for this inefficiency. In such situations, a marketing specialist is needed who can identify and correct the error.
Firstly, marketing is a complex science with many nuances. Therefore, it will be much easier for an experienced specialist, who has the necessary insights and knowledge, to find the shortfall.
Secondly, it's harder to see the flaws in one's own company. One's own creation always seems perfect.