Have you ever wondered why customers choose to buy from your business? Do you truly understand their pain points and the factors that influence their buying decisions? Without this knowledge, your marketing efforts and referral generation may fall short. It is crucial to comprehend your customers’ buying cycle in order to effectively engage with them.
The Importance of Understanding Your Customers’ Motivations
Customers make purchases because they have a problem that needs solving, regardless of the product or service. Let’s consider a simple example. During a long drive, I needed water for hydration. Although water is readily available, I chose to buy bottled water from Coles service stations due to their convenience, the opportunity to earn Flybuys points, and the ability to recycle the bottles. While other options might have been cheaper, the convenience and additional benefits made Coles my preferred choice.
This example demonstrates that even the simplest purchases are driven by the desire to solve a problem in the most effective way. Understanding your clients’ motivations to buy is essential. It’s worth noting that customers don’t always choose the cheapest option; other factors play a role in their decision-making process.
How to Discover Why Customers Buy
The easiest way to uncover why customers choose your business is simply by asking them. Engage with your clients, particularly your best ones, and inquire about their decision to purchase from you. If you have categorised your clients based on their value (e.g., gold, silver, bronze), separate the answers accordingly to identify what motivates your top clients to buy. This valuable information can help shape your future marketing strategies.
Depending on your business, there are several methods to gather this information. For traditional retailers, conversational inquiries at the point of sale or post-sale questionnaires through a CRM system can be effective. The same applies to online sales and services. For higher-value sales involving personal relationships, such as real estate or car sales, asking customers directly after the purchase is completed can yield valuable insights.
Additionally, if you receive referrals from other sources, don’t hesitate to ask the referrer what motivated them to refer you and why they thought you were the right fit for the potential client. Regularly discussing referrals with your referral partners can provide useful information as well.
Capturing the gathered data is crucial, as information is only useful when you can derive actionable results from it. Free tools like SurveyMonkey can generate quantitative reports for survey-based responses. For more qualitative insights, consider using a simple Excel spreadsheet to identify trends and cluster similar responses. Pay attention to recurring keywords, as they often indicate common themes within your data.
Identifying Pre-Purchase Engagements
Once you understand your clients’ pain points and motivations, it is vital to determine who they engage with before making a buying decision. For instance, when purchasing a house, there are numerous professionals involved in the process: accountants, financial planners, mortgage brokers, conveyancers, and removalists. Recognizing these pre-purchase engagements is essential because any of these individuals can potentially refer customers to one another, including you. By getting involved before a buying decision is made, you position yourself as a viable candidate.
Leveraging Customer Journey Insights in Marketing
Armed with knowledge about your customers’ buying journey, you can tailor your marketing efforts to address their specific pain points. By demonstrating that you understand their problems, you increase the likelihood of winning their business. Even small businesses can utilise this principle across various customer touch points, such as marketing collateral, websites, blog posts, and other communication channels. Craft language and imagery that resonates with your target market, making them feel understood and motivated to choose your business over competitors’. In the digital realm, this understanding becomes even more crucial.
Empowering Referral Partners with Customer Journey Insights
One particularly valuable application of customer journey insights is empowering your referral partners. By sharing the journey your clients go through and providing appropriate language and cues, you enable your referral partners to connect potential customers directly to your business. This significantly enhances your referral potential.
In conclusion, understanding your customer’s buying journey is a vital aspect of generating referrals and closing more sales. Collecting and analysing data, observing the pre-purchase engagements, and leveraging this knowledge in your marketing efforts can lead to significant growth. Remember that success is built step by step, and continually refining your understanding of your customers’ journey is key. As Seth Godin wisely said, “Every great company, every great brand, and every great career has been built in exactly the same way: bit by bit, step by step, little by little.”
Written by Braith Bamkin