00:00:20:18 – 00:00:42:03
Paul Sterett
Well, welcome to the first webinar of 2023 or White Heart Insight and the first installment of our Know Thy Customer webinar series. So today we’re going to take a look at the first stage in a customer’s buying cycle. So let’s go ahead and get started.
00:00:44:06 – 00:01:12:24
Paul Sterett
So when you’re looking at all the stages of the customer buying cycle, we start with life. You only have situation options, research, contact and buy. And so again, today we’re going to focus on the first stage, that stage being life in a customer’s buying cycle. And so when we. The first thing that we think about or need to look at is the length of the life stage.
00:01:13:06 – 00:01:39:12
Paul Sterett
And this is the length of time in between when a customer needs a good or service from you or from one of your competitors. Now, this obviously can vary from different businesses, industries and markets. Take, for instance, a roofing company that can have a up to a 20 year cycle in between. A customer needing a new roof or or not.
00:01:40:04 – 00:02:05:00
Paul Sterett
There are some variability in that, obviously, if they move or something happens. But if you’ve got a customer in a house for an extended period of time, the life of a roof is about 20 years. There are obviously other industries that have shorter cycles. I mean, somebody that is buying shoes, depending on how often they buy shoes that could be anywhere from six months to a year or it could be over two weeks.
00:02:05:08 – 00:02:38:16
Paul Sterett
But understanding the links between when somebody buys a good or service is very important in this first stage. And the reason being is that knowing that length and understanding the frame of mind of that customer, what they’re capable of in that length of time is very important. When you’re communicating with somebody in between purchases, knowing what they can and can’t do and what frame of mind they’re in is very important.
00:02:39:00 – 00:03:04:01
Paul Sterett
If they’re not ready to buy, there is not a need present. And so the retaining of information that is needed to complete a transaction is less important. The matter of fact, it’s quite wasteful if you’re trying to communicate through your marketing and your advertising, trying to push those facts and figures in those details, that comes later. Very important.
00:03:04:09 – 00:03:35:16
Paul Sterett
But that comes later in this stage of the buying cycle of life in that period before they’re ready to buy again if they’ve already purchased from you or have not purchased from you. Knowing what their frame of mind is is very important. And that frame of mind, to be clear, is they are not ready to be transactional. So the facts and figures of the details that are required to make a transaction to make a purchase are not going to resonate with them at this stage in their buying cycle.
00:03:37:03 – 00:04:03:12
Paul Sterett
So there’s two types of media and understanding which type of media is relevant to a consumer at this point is is helpful for you in your planning and your strategy for your marketing and deploying your advertising. So we have relational media and we have transactional media. So relational media is going to be squarely in this stage of life and it’s kind of self-explanatory.
00:04:03:12 – 00:04:32:01
Paul Sterett
You can build relationships with this type of media. TV is a very common radio is a very one of the biggest ones in this relational stage, and in that you can build a relationship if you’re trying to cram facts and figures in this type of media during the lifecycle and the stage of the customer buying cycle, you’re going to fall flat because they’re just not ready to retain that information.
00:04:32:11 – 00:05:11:02
Paul Sterett
Transactional media is when they are ready to buy and they’re rationalizing that that decision they’ve made and the previous part of their buying cycle, which we’ll get to in later installments of this webinar series. But understanding that there are two types of media, there are relational and there are transactional. But in this stage of the customer’s buying cycle and the life stage, relational media is what’s going to help us get them ready to give us a chance to be part of their their actual transaction later in that cycle.
00:05:12:03 – 00:05:50:03
Paul Sterett
So building relationships is really the only goal because 95% of our lives, actually more than 95% of our lives for a particular good or service is is is in this life stage. And like I said earlier, depending on your market, depending on your business, the length of that is going to going to vary. But if we attempt to do anything but build relationships, we’re going to waste time and money, primarily because within 72 hours we scrub 92% of everything we take in.
00:05:51:18 – 00:06:15:22
Paul Sterett
So only 8% is going to remain. And if we’re trying to push facts and figures, it’s going to just be kicked out in the Great Purge called sleep. You know, within 72 hours, we’re going to scrub all the things that we don’t need anymore. But we do remember. And what makes it in that 8% cut are are people in businesses who build relationships with us.
00:06:16:03 – 00:06:39:01
Paul Sterett
And I’ll give you an example of that. So men’s warehouse, I fit their target profile. I’m a man and I wear clothes, which is broad, but nonetheless, I fit their target profile. And in high school, I didn’t need them because I went to private school. So I had a uniform and in college and I could go and buy PJs if I wanted to.
00:06:39:21 – 00:07:23:22
Paul Sterett
But they spent all of that time building a relationship with me, and they told me I was going to like the way I look if I went to Men’s Wearhouse. Now, they don’t use that slogan anymore, but they did a number of years ago and it was a really great way to build that relationship on an emotional level with me because when I did need to look the part, then I first turned to look in and I remembered, I’m going to like the way I look if I go to Men’s Wearhouse and I don’t just as consumers and customers, we don’t remember necessarily who told us that, but somebody told me that just turns out
00:07:23:22 – 00:07:50:24
Paul Sterett
that they that was that was Men’s Wearhouse that told me that for that long but they spent this that that’s life stage of my personal buying cycle. Building that relationship with me and reminding me that I’m going to like the way I look. If I go to Men’s Wearhouse. At that time, they didn’t actually spend a lot of effort into pushing sales and facts and figures as far as pricing and things of that nature.
00:07:51:04 – 00:08:25:03
Paul Sterett
What they did is they told me I was going to like the way I look at Men’s Wearhouse now. That’s building relationship and that’s what is important in this life stage of your customers buying cycle is how are you building a relationship with them? Because that’s all that you can do in this stage and it’s very important though, because when we’re ready to buy and again, we’ll look at this in future installments in more depth, but we we want to buy and do business with people that we’re familiar with.
00:08:25:13 – 00:09:00:19
Paul Sterett
Well, the only way that you’re going to make that qualification is if you have a relationship with your customers or your potential customers. So building relationships is the most important thing in doing anything other than building relationships in this life stage is really just a waste of time and money. So as you are looking into marketing strategy, gee, this is the first step that you need to be mindful of understanding the length of time that your customer is in this stage of life.
00:09:01:22 – 00:09:33:23
Paul Sterett
Knowing that there is only so much that you can pump into them. They’re going to forget things that they don’t need that aren’t relevant to them. So don’t push the facts and figures. Don’t push sales on a customer that’s in this stage of their buying cycle, but definitely build a relationship with them. And if you build that relationship as they move through their buying cycle, then you’re going to have a much higher percentage, a lot more opportunity to convert them in to a buying customer down the line.
00:09:34:06 – 00:10:00:11
Paul Sterett
Now the next thing that we’ll look at and we’ll come back January 31st for this is the the next stage is the situation and going into depth about how that plays in to moving them through this buying cycle. Now these are intended these webinars are intended and designed to be short clips, to be digestible, to not take too much time in your day.
00:10:00:17 – 00:10:20:23
Paul Sterett
But if you’d like to have a deeper conversation, we welcome any any outreach. You can email me at Paul Dot Stair at Comcast AR One Heart Inside.com and be happy to have a conversation with you. Thanks so much and I look forward to seeing you January 31st for our next installment.
00:10:21:05 – 00:10:37:08
Speaker 2
Of our series The Situation.