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Newsletter #909: The “Make Their Lives Easier” Issue

[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]

We prefer easy over hard any day. So do your customers. Making it easier gives them a better reason to try you out or to come back for more. It also shows you care. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Show them how you would do it
2. Let them fill in the blanks
3. Show them how other customers do it
4. Check it out: LEGO recreates space jump

1. Show them how you would do it

Marketo is a software company that helps people run marketing campaigns and track leads. Since this stuff can get technical and use a lot of variables, Marketo makes it easy for their customers by giving away their internal marketing strategies, templates, and workflows using the software. Sharing ready-to-use tactics makes it easier for customers to get started and see results much more quickly.

The lesson: What can you teach your customers about how to use your product better?

2. Let them fill in the blanks

The hardest part about selling conference passes is that everyone needs permission from the boss. MarketingProfs makes this easier by giving potential attendees a ready-to-go letter they can copy, fill out, and send to the boss. This is great because people may be too busy to write up a business case themselves, but the downloadable form makes it easy to close the sale.

The lesson: A little extra help can be the little extra push your customer needs to do business with you.

3. Show them how other customers do it

Finding the right size is a tricky part of buying clothing online. It can get even trickier when it’s Black Milk Clothing’s ultra-fitted, latex leggings (which you know I wear all the time). So they ask past customers to upload pictures to Facebook and Instagram with tags that put them directly onto their sizing chart page. Seeing the pictures of real customers in the leggings is more helpful than a text product review. Even better, it shows these customers liked them so much they were willing to share a picture and an endorsement.

The lesson: Bringing in your customers to help can spark something bigger than a sale.

Learn more: Black Milk Clothing

4. Check it out: LEGO recreates space jump

Speaking of making it easier, the LEGO version of Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the edge of space was probably less of a nail biter to produce, but it’s still pretty cool.

Check it out: Fast Company

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