Effective sales and promotions guide potential customers through a purchase decision funnel, from awareness to becoming loyal, repeat customers, by addressing their fears and building confidence in the product’s value.
Primary Implication
A low sales conversion rate reflects the failure to convert prospects into customers. Most often, this is a failure to lead prospects through a repeatable sales path that results in them buying the things they need and want from you at a profit.
Don’t let ineffective sales techniques rob you of new customers. Don’t be like those who see sales as a dirty part of the business. Learn to see the sales process as helping people buy the things they need.
Overview
As your customer approaches the decision to buy from you, any fear or insecurity that arises makes it harder for them to connect to the value you are creating for them. This fear dissipates when they gain confidence in your company and their belief that your solution will solve their problem.
You do a lot to help your customers overcome the fear of doing business with you by creating clarity and accuracy around knowing who they are, what they need, when they need it, and where they will find it. You do this by applying the insights you derive from the 7-P Framework to the following purchase decision funnel.
- Awareness: move the potential customer from ignorant to aware that you exist.
- Consider: create reasons to become interested.
- Interest: if they like what you’re saying they’ll move on, if they dislike your message, they’ll stop.
- Shop: decided to consider buying.
- Intent: determine where to buy.
- Buy: you have a new customer
- Love: if the customer loves how the product delivers on the promise, they will likely become a repeat customer.
Your promotions only influence behavior when they are relevant to your target customer. In contrast, when your promotions are irrelevant, they fail to influence behavior. You make your message relevant when you help your prospective customers who need your help to move along the above seven elements of the purchase decision funnel.
The objective of any promotion is to help your target customer become informed and then influenced, through your promotions. You must do this because your typical target customer will never move from “awareness” to “buy” in one big leap. Only the impulse buyer will do this, and for most products and services, impulse buyers don’t exist.
Once the target customer becomes aware, they will begin to consider your product or service. If you successfully create enough interest, they may begin to shop. If you fail to create this initial interest, they will hold back in seeking further information, or they may stop at this point because they do not see enough reason to continue to shop.
The goal of your promotions is to keep your target audience inquiring until they become a customer. An inquiring mind is open to buying. The minute your customer thinks they have enough information to determine the value of the product or service correctly, they will stop inquiring and move on to making a “buy” or “pass” purchase decision.
Your ultimate goal is to get your customers to love how the product or service they bought from you delivered on its promise. In Spanish, “amor” means to love. When your customers “amor” your what thy bought from you, they are more likely to buy “a more” from you.
