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Selling low-priced products is easy—all you need to do is to capitalize on people’s buying impulse. But selling high-ticket products, such as Education, is a different game. Without a good understanding of how people buy, you may find yourself frustrated in the process.
1. You can’t rush buyers
The first rule of thumb in high-ticket sales is that you can’t rush the buyers. Let’s take private colleges for example. The average student is someone working long hours, often working 10-12 hour shifts. To enroll in a college that would enable them to pursue higher qualifications and enjoy better job prospects, several things have to happen:
- They need to quit their jobs (highly unlikely) or find a way to fit studying into their busy schedule. This often involves asking their superiors for permission and working with colleagues who are nice enough to accommodate their work schedules.
- They need to save up for tuition or opt for financial aid. Most of it will need to be paid back—so money is a real concern.
- They need to understand that the cost of inaction (or delayed action) is going to cost them more in the long-run.
- The school has to have a really good career placement support team.
…and the list goes on. No wonder it’s such a tough sell!
Although it’s easy to get potential students interested in a program (usually through an advertisement placed on Facebook or Google), getting them to enroll is a whole different story.
It takes more than giving away a salary guide, sending out brochures and emails, and hosting a couple of open houses.
Truth is, the average student’s enrollment journey doesn’t look average at all.
Everyone has their own timeline, defined by their own set of circumstances.
They could be in a really bad mental state right now due to circumstances outside their control, they could have just entered a new phase of life and need time adjusting, or they could have been feeling comfortable for a long time that it’s going to take a bit of inception to get them to spring into action.
Even if you have the right offer and the right person, it doesn’t mean there’s a sale right away if the time isn’t yet right.
A better strategy is to get clear on how long the typical journey is and designing your strategy around that.
2. The importance of consistency
As we have already established earlier, turning leads into students and customers takes time.
The average student takes about three to nine months from the time they are interested in a program to submit an enrollment application.
This observation also seems to be across other high-ticket industries as well, such as real estate, automobile, solar, and so on.
In many of these purchases, we discovered that buyers often act on emotions.
They often buy not because of a good deal, but because of an emotionally significant event that happened recently.
This could be anything from the loss of a loved one, missing out on a long-awaited promotion cycle to having one of their worst days at work or with their family.
Since such emotional events don’t happen every day, how do you make the sale?
We think that the best solution is to be consistent in your marketing and sales efforts.
Start early and build relationships with potential customers. Take time to introduce them to your products and services, improve their lives in little ways, so that when their needs arise, your company will be the first that they think of.
It’s easier said than done, but once you’ve built the brand relationship and equity, you’ll see multiple returns on your investment.
4. Engage in these two ways
Engagement is misunderstood. Most people think of engagement as liking or sharing your content.
But true engagement goes beyond that. When done correctly, it becomes a strategic victory over your competitors.
This type of engagement exists in 2 forms.
The first form is what we call “light” engagement.
Essentially, it means applying a light-touch approach to engage someone. This includes advertisements, emails, and anything that looks like an untargeted yet highly relevant piece of content.
The trick is in the targeting.
Instead of trying to engage everyone, engage only people who have indicated an interest in your products or services.
For example, you can run a branded advertisement that celebrates the achievement of your organization to those who have recently inquired about your products or services. Do so on multiple platforms (Facebook, Google, YouTube, third party websites, etc.).
What people will see is that you’re appearing everywhere, and with enough repetition, they’ll develop a good impression and brand affinity with you.
In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman touches on the behavioral psychology research about repetition:
“Anything that makes it easier for the associative machine [aka, your brain] to run smoothly will also bias beliefs. A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”
This isn’t hocus pocus. It’s true.
On the other hand, engagement also exists in a second and more personal form. We call this “heavy” engagement.
Basically, this means having a conversation or experience with the prospective buyer about your product or service. But it isn’t just any conversation—it has to be a carefully thought out and experiential approach which will help your buyers understand what the products or services will do for them.
A great engagement process will achieve the following:
- Help would-be buyers to remember the reason for reaching out in the first place.
- See a gap between where they want to be and where they are right now.
- Understand how your products or services address the gap.
Combine the “light” and “heavy” engagement forms and you’ll have the perfect persuasion recipe.
These are the three lessons I picked up after helping dozens of colleges and institutes market their programs. Did you find any of these tips useful? What else might you add to the list?
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Previously published here and reprinted with the author’s permission.
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