The final step on the path to a purchase is often seen as the end by the vendor. But ask any experienced sales person you know and they will tell you that it is easier to sell to someone who has already bought from you then to someone who does not know you. Read the full story at The Results People blog.
As the buyer’s journey continues, each stepping stone on the path to a purchase gets smaller. The good news is that if you are the vendor that has made it this far, there is less room at this step for other vendors to knock you off. Read the full article at The Results People…
At various points in the business purchase process, we need emotional support to know that we are making the right decision for ourselves and our company. There are some reliable human traits we share when we make decisions. Read more at The Results People…
Every purchase starts with a desire, but the path from Desire to BUY will depend on how complex the purchase is. A complex sale might be described as one where there is a need for a lot of information. For example, imagine you manage a company that manufactures vinyl windows, and the company is in the happy position that business is booming and they need to expand their manufacturing capacity. Let’s say that expanding production at the current location is not feasible, so you need to find a bigger location to move into, or build a new factory. The new [...]
The voyages of the Star Trek Enterprise took viewers to distant galaxies, exposed them to alien species, and taught them countless life lessons (right?). But did you know there were also lots of lessons in there about buyer behavior? Allow me to explain… Red shirt, no real purpose = death. Granted, in Star Trek, including an alien battle makes the episode more exciting. But the story line is developed by the main characters, not that ensign you see for 6 seconds before he gets killed. The aliens didn’t have time to deal with insignificant, pointless Away Team members. Think about [...]
The 7 Stepping Stones metaphor is a way to visualize the process that businesses and individuals go through when deciding to purchase something. The process is logical, but it’s not necessarily linear. That’s why I’ve represented key decision points in the process as stepping stones, arranged in a circle around the first stepping stone, from which the path to every purchase always begins. You can call this starting point on the path to purchase “desire”. From this central stone, a buyer may move to any other stepping stone, depending on the complexity of the purchase. Where it gets tricky for [...]
The most popular question in search is “what’s next”? There are thousands of opinions, blogs, studies and even conferences devoted to this very topic. The masses tend to head toward the thought of defining the perfect search experience, or perfect search engine. Is this really what is needed, the perfect search engine? How people access content, and how relevant and current that content is, will be the constant factors in this evolution. But can we actually see into the future by learning from the past? Teach Me, Mr. TV Executive According to the viewership numbers from Nielsen, U.S. Television grew [...]
Imagine you’ve just shelled out x-thousand dollars for a 30-second TV spot that will run in prime time for the next three weeks or a full-page, full-color spread that will be published in the New York Times on Saturday. You’re crossing your fingers that you’ll get a good ROI, because your boss is breathing down your neck. I sure hope that you included a URL in your ad. Whether you like it or not, potential customers who watch/read your ad will go looking for you online. Are you making it easy for them to do that? In a research study [...]
Sometimes those of us who follow online technology get caught up in the noise of all the different developments that happen every week. If we’re not busy dissecting Google’s latest algorithms or discussing the implications of local search, Facebook’s privacy policies, industry conferences, Apple versus RIM (or Microsoft or…), and all the other tech news, we just might miss the real impact happening all around us. Yes, I’m talking about real people experiencing the real impact of technology. Take shopping, for example. The big buzz around the office lately is all about Twongo.com. They entered our little local market with [...]
Ok I get it, ratings and reviews are important. It’s kind of obvious. We all know that word of mouth is one of the most creditable and influential touch points in a purchase process. How many times have you asked a colleague or friend ‘where did you get that’ or ‘what do you think of this’. In fact, in an Enquiro research study, it was noted that word of mouth is one of the top three influencing factors in every level of purchase, from very informal to very complex. So besides creating a tribe of raving fans, what are the [...]