In an ideal world, every potential client would be so excited about your offering they’d be jumping out of their skin to say YES to your right now, right?
The reality is though, only a small percentage of people are ready to buy right now … especially given that in some industries lead times are very long.
You’ve probably heard the saying that most clients buy after the 8th contact with a company yet most sales people stop after the second. That’s why it’s SO important to keep in touch with your potential clients regularly.That’s why it also makes sense to ensure that the messages you communicate have RESONANCE with your audience and RELEVANCE.
One of the ways to do that is to make sure your messaging is a match with the stage of the buying journey that your client is at.
Here’s a chart showing the Client Buyer Journey. along with the types of content to send at every stage of the journey.
1. UNAWARE
People at this stage don’t know they have a problem. And when people aren’t aware of a problem they don’t see a need to change or a need for your product or services.
As you can imagine, the lead time when targeting these types of clients, is much longer than if you were targeting people who are solution or product aware so it’s often only a solution in certain industries that are highly competitive or where they are in a completely ‘blue ocean’ category.
The focus on your communication at this stage of the buying journey is to educate people about the problem.
How do you do that?
Here are some examples of content that relates to people at this stage of the journey:
The X Problems that [Target Audience] face that Kill Sales
The Hidden Myth Around [topic]
Get the picture?
How does this apply to your industry?
Here are some industry specific examples:
Question to ask yourself:
“What do you fix that people most commonly think they don’t have a problem around?”
Mortgage Broking:
Creating awareness around the need to refinance for home owners who think their home loan is offered at the best deal.
Accountants:
Previous tax return errors – people often don’t realise that they can have them reviewed and adjust them.
Future cashflow issues
General
10 Signs That Your Self-Esteem is Affecting Your Business Revenue
By educating this audience they then move from ‘unaware’ to ‘problem aware’.
2. PROBLEM AWARE
Once people are at the ‘problem aware’ stage they realise that there’s something that they need to change. The focus now is to educate them around the following things:
- How specifically that problem is affecting their lives
- What will happen if they don’t fix the problem.
- Why they have that problem – this is to reassure people that they’re not ‘defective’ for having that problem and that others are in the same boat.
- How to fix the problem
A few years ago, I was involved in the branding, marketing and new product development of a world-first boat repair product.
At the time, there was nothing like it on the market. Most products either recoloured or repaired small chips and nothing easily fixed cirline cracks. This product fixed chips and small cracks and colured the damage in as little as 9 seconds … in one application.
Again, this is particularly useful for someone too who is xxxxx.
Here’s some types of content that address that:
- Trouble-shooting guide
- Case Studies
- FAQs
- Webinars
- How-To Articles
3. SOLUTION AWARE
Once they know what the solution is, they then start to look at companies who can deliver that solution. Not only that, some people at this stage have already tried to fix the problem in the past using different types of products/services, but it hasn’t worked.
This is where you might feature:
- A trouble shooting guide.
- FAQs
4. PRODUCT AWARE
At this point they’re aware of the solution and they are aware of your product.
How do you market to them?
The question they’re asking themselves at this stage is “why you?”
First – if you’re generating leads, be aware.
Google Adwords and Google Search are awesome ways to attract clients who are at this stage of the buying journey.
The ads that will attract them the most are ones that focus on helping them make the right decision on service providers:
For instance, we have run a number of wildly successful campaigns that address these angles:
- Warning: Don’t Refinance Your Home Until You Read This
- 5 Vital Things to Consider Before you Choose a Security Company
- Avoid These 5 Widget Buying Mistakes
- Which Widget Company? Get your FREE XYZ Comparison Guide?
5. FULLY AWARE
When your potential client knows the solution and they’re aware of the solution you provide, they’re at the ‘fully aware’ stage.
Your aim with people who are at this stage of the buying journey is to encourage commitment to a sale.
The question for you to answer is, “Why Now”.
Here’s how you do that:
- Make special, limited time frame offers that deliver scarcity. This encourages people to act now.
- Follow-up sales calls
- Use Facebook retargeting to maximise top-of-mind awareness
- Offer a Guarantee or some other form of risk reversal
What Next?
The next stage is to map out your campaign.
1. Lead Generation
Get clear on what stage of buyer you want to attract.
This will determine the optin offer and the ‘appeal’ to use in your ads.
For instance, people who are ready to buy right now will be more open to ads that focus on the solution. In this situation your offer might be a direct consultation.
On the other hand, people who are exploring ways to solve the problem will be more open to a cheat sheet or webinar that offers solutions.
In this situation, your cost per lead will be a lot lower but at the same time you’ll be building a larger list of people who will become clients at a future date.
At the end of the day though, it becomes an exercise that focuses on ‘visitor value’ or ‘cost per sale’.
2. Your Email Induction Series
Once you’ve identified who you’re targeting and what offer you’re making in your lead generation activities, the next step is to create an email induction series that builds that know you like you trust you factor.
So – if you’re attracting ‘problem aware’ people to your list, your induction series will start by addressing the issues that ‘problem aware’ people have (as mentioned above) then lead them through the buying journey to solution, product and then very aware.
If your lead generation activities are targeting ‘solution aware’ people your email induction series will focus on ‘why you’ emails eg. testimonials, case studies, your value proposition, your guarantees and special offers.