How do you ensure your marketing system connects the right message to the right person at the right time?
Your buyer wants information — and they want it now. Therefore, during the early stages of procurement, buyers will typically go through a three-phase education process.
Phase 1:
Solution Awareness
and Market Education
In this first phase, the buyer has an acquisitive mindset, seeking as much relevant information as possible.
You want to show, not tell (or sell) in this phase. Therefore, you need to create the best possible show — one that is memorable. This is not the time for a pretty brochure or something average. Think outside the box. Get the most creative people involved and list all the ideas for producing a memorable show.
Know when it’s the right time to exchange value, meaning getting an email address from the prospect in exchange for a “valuable” resource guide or personalized report.
After the education process, the buyer moves to discover what solutions may exist to address that pain.
Phase 2:
Solution Discovery
When the buyer transitions to this stage, they have a specific business pain in mind and are exploring the range of potential solutions.
Phase 3:
Solution Validation
Once a prospect learns enough to understand the business pain and assemble a prioritized list of vendors with potentially relevant solutions, they begin the critical process of determining which choices are the best fit.
In this stage, the buyer wants to know what is “the deal,” what is the price, whether it solves their entire business pain, and what impact it will have on them or their business.
By simplifying the buying process to these three phases, we cut through much of the noise to concentrate on what matters most:
Are we delivering the right message, to the right person, in the right format, at the right time?
This is how you begin to build a lead generation system. If you sell too early or too late, you lose. Timing is everything.
You play a role in influencing a buyer’s final decision by understanding their pain, providing value, and only selling after you have provided an immense amount of value to help the prospect make an educated decision that is best for them.
The challenge is observing and understanding the buyer’s digital body language to align your selling process with their buying process.
To your success,
