Helpful Marketing: A Case Study

If you're wondering what's different about Internet marketing, check out Crucial.com, a site that sells computer memory chips. Boring? Perhaps to some, but it's the way they sell the chips that you might be interested in. Crucial decided that instead of hawking deals like evry other memory catalog, that they'd actual help the customers solve the problems that they have. Read on to see if you can apply helpful marketing to your business.

You use a computer, but have you ever bought a memory chip for it? Most people haven't, possibly because they don't know how to install it, but perhaps because you have no idea how to buy one. I know I don't.

But my wife recently upgraded several of our slow-running computers that I thought we'd need to replace, and it was Crucial.com that helped her do it. She downloaded a simple tool that told her the maximum memory that each machine could use and then showed her chips that were compatible with her system.

She ordered them and installed them and suddenly Windows XP is running swiftly on these older computers, for a lot less than a new computer. Might she have found the chips at a lower price? Perhaps, but this was so easy that she didn't feel the need to save a few bucks by price shopping (and risking buying the wrong chips). But she definitely saved a lot over going to the manufacturer, which is the normal way you'd ensure compatibility.

To be sure Crucial is calling things straight, I tested a computer that had the maximum memory installed, and Crucial accurately told me that it did. So, now you're getting the idea of how to sell computer memory, but what does this have to do with your business?

Only you can decide. Think about what kinds of problems your customers struggle with. Do they know how much life insurance they need? Do they understand how to match the color of their bedspread to the color of their wall? How can they tell that your consultants are qualified?

Whatever your business is, your customers have questions that are hard to answer. You might even think those questions are outside the scope of what you should be expected to do. But if your customers need that help, and you provide it, that gives you a leg up on every other competitor. Crucial.com could have put up the same catalog that every other memory chip retailer does, but instead they went a step further to help customers in their moment of need.

Don't settle for coloring within the lines the way everyone else does. Think broadly about what your customers need and help them.