Guiding not telling Buyers
Welcome to video #6 in our series of 21 Marketing and Sales Challenges of IT/Tech businesses and what to do about them. This challenge is about being the “helpful guide”.
Buyers will usually research online, ask their friends, suppliers, customers or network or attend events to identify the cause of the problem they are trying to solve and what the possible solutions are.
They do their research before even before asking for a referral or contacting a supplier. Your job as a “helpful guide” is to discover whether they are just starting their buying journey, they have decided on a short list or are ready to buy.
Then, based on this information guide them, by providing the information they need to help them along the journey to solve their issue. This edition explains how to do this.
The wrong focus
Many businesses assume that because the prospect has visited your website or contacted you they must be ready to buy your product or service. This isn’t always the case and you might be jumping the gun by neglecting prospects and clients who are at different stages of the Buyer’s Journey. The three different stages being:
Image: Courtesy of Hubspot
- Awareness – where they become aware of a problem that they have
- Consideration – where they will consider all their different options before reaching a final decision
- Decision – where they will choose whoever they feel can best solve their issue
Why can this wrong focus cause problems?
There is a definitive negative effect of focusing solely on current prospects and clients who are at the Decision stage.
By focusing your efforts on people who are ready to buy you are only providing guidance to people at the end of their buyers journey and missing out on a big opportunity to attract a larger number of prospective customers.
If that prospect is not at the Decision Stage and you are only giving them product information you are not talking about their problem and they won’t be engaged. Why? They might not know what problem they have yet, let alone the solutions and features of that solution.
It’s your job to understand where they are on their Buying Journey and be the “helpful guide” and earn the right to be the supplier of choice when they are ready to solve their problem.
You must give them what they need
To be the “helpful guide” you need to think about all the different stages your prospects may be are in and provide content that is relevant to where they are in their individual journey.
Image: Courtesy of Hubspot
- Awareness – For prospects in the Awareness stage you need to provide resources that will help them realise what their issue or problem is. Content like Guides and Tip sheets, eBooks, Checklists and Videos.
- Consideration – For prospects who are in the Consideration stage you need to be providing them with resources and content that will help them solve their problem/issue and all their different options. These are things like Case studies, Webinars and maybe Specification sheets
- Decision – For prospects who have done their research and considered all of the different options and are ready to make a final decision they are on the Decision stage. The content you want to be giving to people in this stage are Trials, Demos, Consultations, Estimates and Quotes.
Determine what’s missing
Once you have defined what content is needed at your Buyers’ different stages you can do a quick audit of what you have already so you can work out what you need to create.
Image: Courtesy of Hubspot
In summary
By being the “helpful guide” you will build a pipeline of potential prospects as well as evergreen content and resources that will position you well for future growth. You will engage more prospects and ultimately attract more prospects and nurture them into becoming to clients.
Need some guidance?
If you need more help with this challenge why don’t you take advantage of our free content assessment call. If you would like to discuss any marketing or sales ideas for your business just call us on (02) 9125 0520 or visit our website and request a callback – we’d love to hear from you.
