The way I see it, your prospective customers fall into one of three groups.

And, although the nature of the relationships is different, those prospective customers match up remarkably well with different types of people you could potentially date.

A brief, highly-stereotypical overview of different categories potential dating partners (and their prospect counterparts) should shed some light…

1) The party girl – this is the girl you met on your last trip to Vegas.  She tells you she “likes to drive in on the weekends” and has a pathological attachment to her smartphone.  You’ve never seen her in the sunlight.  Her natural habitat: clubs with velvet ropes, strobe lights, and $30.00 cover charges.

Prospect Version – the impulse buyer.  Someone who’s ready and willing to shell out cash for your product or service right now… if it can give them what they want.

2) The good girl – this is a sweet, down-to-earth girl you’d love to take home to mom.  You think she’s into you, but she’s cautious because she’s been burned in past relationships.  She needs to get to know you better before she can consider a long-term relationship with you.

Prospect Version – your typical prospective customer.  Someone who’s interested enough in what you’re offering to pay attention to your ad, but not willing to immediately act on it.  It’s up to you to turn their initial interest into desire, and that desire into buying.

3) The “friend” – this is the girl you’ve liked since middle school but too chicken to ever ask out.  Now, she vents to you about her guy problems and says she “loves you like a brother.”

Prospect Version – not really a legitimate prospect at all.  Someone who doesn’t fall into your target market.  They won’t ever buy from you no matter how hard you try to convince them because they don’t need or want what you’re offering.

Your potential customers are like your potential dates; trying to treat them all the same way will backfire!

Do you treat these different types of people the same way when you’re wooing them?

Highly unlikely, if you want to turn a first date into something more.

The spontaneous, seat-of-the-pants approach that some women lap up won’t do you any favors when you’re chatting up a shy, quiet one.

What works for the first two groups won’t work at all for the “friend” who sees you as a big brother.  Not now.  Not ever.  You’re better off refocusing your romantic advances on someone else.

These categories are not always obvious or well-defined.

And here’s the thing: you don’t always know what type she is until after you’ve gone out with her a few times.  This means you have to court her in a way that keeps her interested until you can figure her out.

Your potential customers are like this too.

Hopefully you know what they want, and you’re promoting a product or service that satisfies that want.

But you don’t know how desperate they want or need that right now.  Some need it more than others.

A lot of ads push too hard in the beginning.  They cash in on the impulsive types, but they do a terrible job of ramping up the cautious types’ interest and end up scaring them off.

One-shot ads have their place.  No doubt.  A time-sensitive promotion can be a great way to drum up some business.

But those one-shot, aggressive ads work best when they’re part of an advertising system that takes a balanced approach between exhorting prospects to buy now and educating them or building trust.

Now, allow me to take a huge burden off your shoulders:

You won’t ever convince everyone to buy your product or service in a single ad.  And that’s fine… you just have to move them closer to buying.

Most advertisers try too hard to convince everyone to buy right away. Good news: you don’t have to do that…

When you stop trying to do too much with your ads and focus out how to make them appealing enough for everyone to respond to them in their own time, that’s when you win.

That’s when you maximize profits and lock down long-term, stable business.

Content marketing and email autoresponders are great for this.

Get in touch with me here to see how I can do this for you.

You don’t just want the impulse buyers.

The right approach will get you so much more than that.