If you are venturing into the online marketing world, mainly e-commerce, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the five steps of the buyer decision process. Knowing how to get buyers to purchase is one thing, but taking them through a whole process is a journey that you must learn to master. Otherwise, you will always get leads, but you will never be able to get the sales. In this article, I will outline the buyer decision process that you must know to start making sales online.
Remember, an online business is a BUSINESS. It is not just simply copy and paste a link and, bam, you get money. That is not how it works. As with anything in life that is worthwhile, starting a business is going to take time and patience. You will have to work at it and think about it constantly. You will have to have a positive attitude and get back up if you feel like quitting. With that being said, let’s dive in.
Step 1: Find a Problem Or a Need
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This is perhaps the easiest step that you will find on this journey. Problems are everywhere and we know this from how many people like to complain about their problems. As a marketer, your job is to help alleviate or solve that problem for a person.
Some of the major problems that people face are:
- Health and Wellness – people want to lose weight and get in shape.
- Make money – there are many people who are tired of their nine to five jobs
- Finding Love – We live in an age where many people, 25% of millennials, do not have friends
There are many problems that are out there, but these are the three biggest.
Step 2: Information Search
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Now that the problem has been discovered, the next process is providing the consumer an outlet, a platform, a means of getting in touch with you so that you can help them out other their problem.
The platforms to which you can use to reach people who need help are:
There are several ways to which you can get in contact with people to help them out in their problems. With the internet offering so many ways to reach people, i.e., social media, getting your business out there is not as difficult as you may think it is.
Step 3: Evaluate If There Are Any Alternatives
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During this part of the process, it is not uncommon for many people to see what you are offering, think about it, and say they will get back to you. What you will want to do, especially if you are doing business online, is to collect their email. Email marketing is incredibly important for the whole journey, as most people do not make a solid decision until about there seventh interaction with a business.
There is a lot of email marketing software out there, such as:
- Aweber
- MailChimp
- Getresponse
If you are not collecting emails and thinking about incorporating email marketing into your whole buyer journey process, you are potentially ending the whole journey with them right there.
Step 4: The Purchase Decision
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During this process, the buyer/consumer wants to purchase the product/service, but they may still be struggling internally with their decision. This is more the reason that you will want to follow up with them via email marketing.
Step 5: The Post-Purchase Evaluation
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If you can get the consumer/buyer to go through these four steps, you will then finally be able to get them to make that purchase.
The Journey Is Long But Necessary
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The journey may be a bit longer than you would like, but it is most definitely worth it. By building that rapport with the new clients, you will be able to get them also to become a loyal buyer.
In addition to this, they may also tell their friends and family about your product or service and thus that is all free advertisement.
Enjoy the process.