There are six stages of the buying cycle for any given customer. They are usually listed something like this: awareness, research, evaluation, decision, purchase, and post purchase evaluation. It’s very important to understand how this affects the choices your new customers make. And, if you can design content that takes all of that into consideration, you’ll be even more successful.
* Awareness – At this time your customer is just becoming aware of a problem that they have. For example, if they find out from the doctor that they have diabetes, this is when they become aware that they have a serious problem. The awareness immediately sends them on a search for information.
* Research – Now that you know your customer knows he or she has diabetes, they take to Google to find out more about the topic. The look for various articles, papers, books and more to find out all they can. At this point, it’s your job to make sure that there is enough content out there for your customer to find that educates them. A good entry level idea is a short report about type II diabetes that you give away in exchange for an email address.
* Evaluation – Now that they’re on your list, you can send them more information about diabetes, including information about your product or service that will help. Let’s say you offer diet coaching, and you have a 21-day boot camp designed to help most participants get their type II diabetes under control. This is the time that your audience will be ready to read about the various solutions.
* Decision – Now that your customer knows they have diabetes, has researched the problem, and found a lot of solutions including yours, they have to choose the solution they’re going to stick with. Your job is to make it a no-brainer to choose your solution by helping them avoid risks. Give a great money back guarantee and show examples of success stories so that they’ll want your solution.
* Purchase – Now that they feel confident in their knowledge, they can make a choice and make a purchase. This is when your customer will use your checkout system. Is it too cumbersome, or is it easy to understand so that they can quickly get through the process once they’ve made a purchase decision? Remember, here it’s all about user experience.
* Post Purchase – When they have made the purchase, it’s still not over. You should communicate with them right after the purchase to thank them. Plus, you may want to tell them about other products and services you offer to continue to help them. Check back up again after a couple of weeks to find out if they’re having any issues. The follow-up can make all the difference in the world when it comes to increasing the lifetime value of your customers.
Every stage of the buying cycle is important. If you learn about each stage and supply information and products to your audience at each stage, you’ll experience a higher rate of conversions and make more money.