#104 - Buyers Journey: Are You Creating Compelling Content That Closes Sales?

Show Notes

Great content is an absolutely necessary companion to your buyer’s journey and your company’s sales process. Knowing what type of content to produce and when to send it is key to closing sales.
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In this episode, Nola Boea and Lori Vajda will take you through all you need to know about producing the right content for your stage 5 (decision stage) audience and business. Take a listen and get the tips and examples so you can turn prospective buyers into customers.

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In This Episode You’ll Learn 

• Stage 5 (decision) of the ‘Buyer’s Journey’, how the right kind of marketing content can help close sales.
• What sales collateral is used for and the kinds of content that are most effective.
• Here are the essential content pieces you need for the final (decision-making) stage if you want to win customers.

Key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:
(02:57:59) An overview of each stage of thebuyer’s journey,including examples. 
(07:03.49) The follow up question should need to ask your ideal customers that will help you improve online marketing.
(10:22:47) Do this one thing right and you’ll likely move a prospective buyer to choose you over the competition.
(13:17:77) 13 easy content ideas for the final decision making stage.

Resources 
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Nola: Ask any established entrepreneur or sales representative, and they'll tell you that closing is the hardest part of acquiring a new customer. After all, if you're not getting prospects to sign contracts or make purchases, you're not going to increase profits. Yet, competing on price is a common mistake far too many new entrepreneurs make. So what is the best thing to do? Stay tuned friends, because in this episode we are focusing on what a successful ending to the buyer's journey looks like and how you can use it to lead more prospects to the close.

[00:00:33] Announcer: You're listening to the Sticky Brand Lab podcast where time strapped professionals like you learn how to create a business you'd love in as little as three hours a week.

[00:00:44] Lori: Have you been trying to figure out how to improve your sales efforts? One solution is to pay attention to the needs of your prospective customer. Because if you don't understand your particular buyer's needs, how will you understand their decision-making process in order to solve their problem? And that means you'll not only miss out on opportunities to engage with them on their journey, you'll also likely lose out on sales.

So Nola, in our episode on Stage Four, you and I discussed the Product Aware Stage using our own recent example of the journey to find a photographer we wanted to hire to do a photo shoot.

[00:01:24] Nola: Yep. And we had the opportunity to be together in the same state, so,

[00:01:29] Lori: Woo. That was very exciting.

[00:01:32] Nola: Yeah. And it's like, hey. You know what? This doesn't happen that often. We should take advantage of this so we could get images that we could use for branding and marketing.

[00:01:41] Lori: Exactly. And we used our own story as shoppers to conceptualize the buyer's journey. And then we explained what we anticipated the goal of the business owner, in our case, the photographer, what their goal was, to help explain it from both perspectives at each stage.

[00:02:00] Nola: Exactly, and we've done that for the last couple of episodes. And this time we saved the close. That is, what we did and what the business owners did, for this particular episode. And so listeners, if you didn't hear that episode, if you want to hear the in-depth explanations for each stage, we'll have the links to those in our show notes. However, Lori, before we get into the final stage, would you like to briefly mention those stages?

[00:02:27] Lori: Yeah, it kind of makes me feel like we're having some instruction here as, uh, students and pupils, and I guess in a little sense of the word, it’s kind of is like that because if you don't really understand that there's a buyer's journey and what that looks like, then as a business owner, you don't realize how much of an impact you can make in order to get people not only in your sales funnel, but as repeat buyers. To start with, Stage One is called the Unaware Stage, and really just as the name implies, people don't have any idea that they have a problem, let alone that they're interested in looking for a solution.

[00:03:11] Nola: Absolutely. I mean, why try to convince somebody who is unaware, not looking, clueless. So you don't want to try to convince them how they could benefit from your product or service. It's a waste of time.

[00:03:24] Lori: Yeah. If you're short on time and money and you don't have dollars to spare, move on and put your efforts into Stage Two, also known as the Problem Aware Stage, and that's where a prospect knows that they have a problem or a pain point, but they have no idea that there's a solution out there or even what that solution could be.

[00:03:46] Nola: Now referring to our example, that is actually the stage where we entered the buyer's journey for a photographer.

[00:03:53] Lori: That's true. I didn't know anyone in Austin, nor did you, as far as a photographer goes. So we didn't know who to hire, let alone what they could offer. Which brings me to Stage Three, often called Solution Aware. And typically, this is where prospective shopper or internet user will be looking for a solution to help them get the results they want. And since they're looking online or asking for recommendations, they tend to get a variety of options. Which at this point is what moves people from Stage Three to Stage Four. They have all of these options. They start investigating those recommendations so that they can narrow it down, and that's what Stage Four is about, Product Aware or Business Aware. I've narrowed my selection down and now I'm considering these two people or these three people, or whatever that number is.

[00:04:54] Nola: Exactly. That's actually why that's called the Consideration Stage. And for us, that's where we narrowed down about 12 photographers to actually begin to consider the top five. And from this group, we sent out emails to see who of those five were available on the only one day that we ourselves had availability.

[00:05:18] Lori: That's true. And of those five I heard back from four, one of those four let us know that she was not available. So that left three.

[00:05:30] Nola: Now technically we moved into the final stage, Stage Five, the Most Aware Stage, also known as the Decision Stage. This is where we come to the close. And it's also where a prospective buyer will evaluate and decide on who's the right provider to administer their solution. So in our case, who's the right photographer for our needs? And by that, I mean customers will ask, Who am I going to hire now? One mistake new business owners make is to not realize how much influence they have leading up to this stage, as well as during it. And that's why we're talking about it today. So, Lori, would you remind our friends listening what the goals are for both the prospect and the business owner or the sales professional during this Decision Stage?

[00:06:18] Lori: Yes, I will do that. But before I do listeners, as a business owner, it's important that you understand the needs of your potential buyers. And the best way to do that is simply to ask them. You often will see like polls at the end of a purchase that will ask, How did you hear about us? And it has a list that you can check off. Or if you're in a storefront, somebody, especially a local business owner, may ask, How did you hear about me? Or, you get that from medical professionals, dental professionals who will ask about that referral process. That's really important because it lets you know if word of mouth is primarily the tool for your business, or if people are doing online searches, a follow up question is, what made them decide that they needed to solve that problem? Because that's going to give you, not only answers that help you address the solution you offer, but it's going to give you an indication of key search words that you can put into your marketing material to help you get found.

So let me use a different example here. Typically, from Stage Four to Stage Five, people have narrowed down their selection to usually two, maybe three business. And I'll use the example of a gym. Let's say that you were looking to find a gym membership. You might have gotten some recommendations from friends; you might have read reviews online from searches.

But let's just say that you've narrowed it down here and your choices now are between Planet Fitness and Gold's Gym. You're ready to spend money. But what happens now is, if you haven't reached out to them prior, you will likely reach out to them. And your goal is you're trying to build a connection to see which gym you have a better "know, like, and trust" factor with.
In our case as a prospective buyer, we wanted to work with a photographer who, yes, was available on a certain day because we only had that day available. But we were also interested in getting headshots, branding shots, and lifestyle images as well. We wanted a photographer who was going to help us look our best.

[00:08:37] Nola: Absolutely. We really wanted to pick a photography we were going to connect with, and that we knew would help us come across as professional confident.

[00:08:45] Lori: And 10 pounds lighter. Yes. two inches taller. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:08:50] Nola: yeah, yeah. Like that. Like that. One mistake many business owners make is believing that a prospective client will base their decision solely on price, and that's a huge mistake. In the majority of cases, it's not price but value that tips a scale. They want to know, am I getting my money's worth from this sale? So how do you articulate your value? Well, by producing helpful, informative, entertaining content that focuses on your ideal customer's needs. This is how you subtly demonstrate that you are the best value for the money, and it's also why as a business owner, you create and match content to each stage of your buyer's journey rather than a generic buyer. That is, you provide information that your specific target or ideal customer is needing to know about their problem, as well as your specific product or service at each stage of their research, vetting, and their decision-making process.

Now, as a business owner, it's important that you have a content strategy. Your goal is to demonstrate that yes, you do outperform your competition, but you also want to do it in a way that says that you are doing something new, you're doing something different. All too often, entrepreneurs just regurgitate the same stuff. Don't do that. To be a solution for them, demonstrate that you offer similar services. However, what and how you do that is your secret sauce.

[00:10:21] Lori: Yes. So here's something to keep in mind, especially if you're thinking about how do you move a prospective buyer to choose you over the competition? Don't mention your competition. Instead, focus on the things that you do better. In Stage Four, about 60% of prospective customers will actually reach out to business owners. In Stage Five, you could pretty much say that the majority of what's remaining, that 40%, will likely contact you. Some people might call back for more information or to get clarity on a couple of their questions.

But really what's happening here is they're looking for that reason to make a purchase from you. And that has to do with the connection that you have with them. When you're talking to people, they often want to know that you understand those unspoken inhibitions they have, or those unspoken hesitations that they're having that relate specifically to their pain point. And the reason that they're holding back, sometimes it's because they don't know how to articulate it, and sometimes it's because they're embarrassed. So if you have a really clear sense of how your ideal customer finds you and makes purchases from you, and you develop your own unique buyer's journey, it lets you talk about some of those, um, embarrassing things in a way that doesn't target the listener. So you can say, for example, you know, I had joked around, Nola, when you and I were talking, that we wanted to look 10 pounds lighter, taller, less fine lines around our face. Clearly, people getting their pictures taken are going to feel some inhibitions or they're going to identify places on their body that they feel the least confident about.

If you are a photographer and you talk about how you work with your client specifically to angle them in a way that reduces those inhibitions, that's an example of connecting. I didn't have to say it or I didn't say it directly, or maybe I said it in a kidding way, but you picked up on it and you addressed my fear, my concern in a way that made me like you.

That brings us down to another point here. As an entrepreneur, you want to go above and beyond their expectation to demonstrate how you provide an easy and frictionless customer experience. So you can do that by communicating the ways that you handle objections that are different than your competition, or that you can reduce hesitation. You want to basically position yourself as a subject matter expert, even if you're new to the business as well.

[00:13:16] Nola: Absolutely. Now, from a content standpoint, depending on your business, this may include offering a free trial or demo, scheduling a free consultation, offering incentives like, a first-time customer coupon or informational freebie handout. You could refer or share blog posts and how-to videos or how-to mini podcasts. You can offer answers to the most frequently asked questions. You can also point them to past customer testimonials and reviews, which are common to put on a website. But in this case, during conversation, you can give them the behind-the-scenes story, give them your own personal case study, which will allow your prospect to understand how you might be able to help them in the same way that you address the same problem for a previous customer.

[00:14:12] Lori: You bring up a really good point there, Nola. You know, when we talk about content, the Decision-Making Stage, or really at any place, we often think of content in the written form. But content can be scripts for phone conversations. So for example, if you've done your own buyer's journey for your customers, you may know the problems or pain points that typically people look to you to resolve, so you can have those and match those to customers or clients of yours in which you are the solution. And talk about it. So you could match, Here's a problem, here's who I use as an example. Here's a problem, here's who I use as an example. So that when you're answering questions on the phone, it jogs your memory. Oh yeah, this was a typical people calling with looking for this solution. Also have this pain point. Let me talk about client X and give them behind the scenes look at how I resolved that issue and made that client happy.

You also want to keep in mind here, unlike my verbose explanations, you want to be concise and punchy with your explanations. It's kind of like, don't bury the lead. Start with the problem and the solution, and then go into the detail behind that, but do it quickly because people will make a decision just as quickly.

You could conduct a customer interview via video or mini podcast, so interviewing your own customers to get why they chose you, and that result. When you record it, you get to hear the inflection and the emotion in their decision. Something that you don't really pick up when you are reading, for example, a blog post or a testimonial. So the interview allows that voice to come to life.

[00:16:08] Nola: That's right. The audio really gives it an extra dimension that can really affect the person that's listening. So our decision,

[00:16:17] Lori: Drum roll, please.

[00:16:18] Nola: Drumroll! Take it away, Lori.

[00:16:23] Lori: So what happened is we narrowed it down to two people, and as we had mentioned, we sent an email. One turned around, got back right away with me and I scheduled a time to talk. The second one, shortly after that, scheduled a time to talk. And by the time the third person got back to us, I had already been in conversations with the other two, so I had assumed we got ghosted. And there's a lesson in that. Know, from an email marketing standpoint, that even if you're busy, have a way of having a response when you are unavailable so that people know you got the message and you're going to get back to them, or you're out of the office, but you'll get back to them within 24 hours. Had I known that about the third photographer, I probably would've waited. But there were some key things that happened in those discussions that we had with the photographers that really tipped the scale one way or another.

[00:17:27] Nola: This is true. we really loved our final two and three. I mean, it just turns out that out of the 12, the ones we liked the most were the ones we had left to decide from. Right?

[00:17:38] Lori: Exactly.

[00:17:38] Nola: So I liked how that worked out. But it was interesting how we found that one was more flexible in working with us, and one seemed to be more rigid in how they structured their packages. And to us that was much of a deciding factor.

[00:17:54] Lori: Yeah, it made the final impact. You and I discussed had the photographer that was a little bit more expensive, been a little bit more flexible. Price wasn't the deciding factor, it was the flexibility,

[00:18:08] Nola: Now listeners, while your goal is certainly to be the final choice, if they don't choose you, do not take it personally. You may never know why they didn't choose you. For example, shoppers rarely move through the buyer's journey in a linear fashion. We only did it because we were under a time constraint, and that's how it worked out. But most buyers will jump around, they'll skip a stage, they'll even sometimes go backwards instead of forwards. Because it's not the right time. which also means that they may actually end up starting the whole buying journey process over again.

[00:18:42] Lori: Look at that as a second opportunity. Because you're building connection. So if somebody calls you back and that means one, that you're still in the running. And two, keeping in mind everything that we talked about today, you are sure to tip the scale in your favor over your competition.

[00:19:02] Nola: Absolutely.

[00:19:03] Lori: Not sure how to turn your idea into a profitable side business? Contact us at stickybrandlab.com/contact. We'd be happy to help you.

[00:19:12] Nola: Be sure to come back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for another informative, inspiring, and motivating episode. And remember, action creates results. So tap into your desire to create a business and brand you love by taking 1% action every day. Small steps, big effects.

[OUT-TAKE]
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Nola: Who's the right business owner that, or company that, that you provide?

[00:19:36] Lori: What?

[00:19:37] Nola: No.

[00:19:40] Lori: Is right company that you provide?

[00:19:47] Nola: So I should have quit while I was ahead.

[00:19:49] Lori: I think you need to do that.

[00:19:52] Nola: I'm going to, I'm going to.

[00:19:53] Lori: OK this was going way too smooth. I mean, we're like,

[00:20:00] Nola: I know. Okay. Here's the retake.