Increase Sales by Understanding Your CustomerÕs Buying Process

One way to increase sales is to take the time to understand your customerÕs buying process, so that you can improve your marketing to better position your company. As a business you have had success because customers buy your products and services. Therefore in theory it should be easy to repeat what you did in order to get new customers and new sales. So why is it that some businesses struggle repeating what they did in order to get new customers or why is it, that method may not be enough for the business to reach its sales goals? In order to answer those questions, we need to understand where your customers are coming from. I break up todayÕs most popular marketing channels into two groups:

#1 Inbound Marketing Channels

• Referral
• Yellow page ads
• Website
• Print Advertising
• Google Advertising
• Google Search Results
• Targeted Online Advertising
• Industry Association
• Phone / 800#

#2 Outbound Marketing Channels

• Networking
• Telemarketing
• Direct Mail
• Email Marketing Campaigns
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Social Media Marketing
• PR
• Seminar
• Word of mouth
• Other

Using this list, can you identify the sources for most of your customers? Further, you should be able to know how many leads you received for each channel. If youÕre not sure which channel produces the most results for your business letÕs take a step back and try to understand how your customer buys.

The Buying Process
1. Need or Want
2. Search to fulfill the need
3. Evaluate and compare your choices
4. Get more detailed information
5. Make a decision

A Real World Example (buying process steps)

1. NEED: A Chicago based regional bottling distributor encounters some broken plastic parts necessary to fulfill their orders.

2. SEARCH: A search for a plastics fabricator begins.

How or where might they search? ie. Yellow Pages, Google, other? When you have a need or want, odds are you use your smartphone and computer to research anything and everything. In 2011, people used Google to make 4,717,000,000 searches per day to satisfy their needs or wants. (Source: Google Official History, ComScore 3/14/12)

3. CHOICES ARE EVALUATED: Google Search Results reveal several companies to choose from.

4. GET MORE INFORMATION: The next step may be to view your choices websites and make some phone calls.

5. MAKE A DECISION: Based on your research, you choose a solution provider.

If this is a way your customers satisfy their need for your services then how can your business learn from this buying process scenario?

Number one: You need to be listed as a choice! If you are not a choice then you are not going to be considered or evaluated and are not in the game. Only the companies that invest in becoming a choice will win the business.

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If you want to be considered a choice for these search results or any other, we recommend investing in buying process marketing strategies to increase sales.

Written by John R Crowley Jr, President, Salesforce Consultant, Salesforce CRM & Marketing Services. For more information, contact Salesforce Consultant at 800-488-4852/530-205-3377, E-mail: john@salesforceconsultant.com, Web: www.salesforceconsultant.com.