00:00:20:01 – 00:00:57:15
Paul
Welcome to our second installment of the Know Thy Customer Webinar series this year. As we kick off the year and we are about to end January. This is the last day in January of 2023, and I’m grateful that you can be here with us in our first installment. We took a look at the first stage in your customer’s buying cycle, which is the life stage, and we took a little bit deeper dive into understanding how your customer is just interacting with their consumer journey, their customer journey in this life stage.
00:00:57:23 – 00:01:40:04
Paul
So the second stage that we’ll be looking at is the situation. And as we move through the six stages, understanding each one is going to help you plan your marketing better and create better advertising and deploy that advertising. Depending on on what your your goals are, So understanding the situation. And so as our customers are living their lives and they’re in this relational mode, as we discussed in the last webinar, the situation is the first event or need that then puts them into beginning that move to a transactional mode.
00:01:40:23 – 00:02:19:15
Paul
And so if we remember in a relational mode, there’s there’s only thing that we can do in that that’s part of a consumer journey is to build a relationship with them because they’re not transactional. They’re only in that relational mode. But as we move into this portion of a consumer’s buying cycle, the situation is where we begin to move into that transactional mode and understanding what these situations are for particular good or service, particularly yours, is very important to know how to communicate better with them, to identify the who your true customers are.
00:02:20:00 – 00:02:48:10
Paul
So this situation, the second the second stage in the customer buying cycle is moving us out of that relational mode and moving us into a transactional mode. And so the customer is frame of mind in this stage of their buying cycle is they they’ve experienced something that has triggered them. So it’s a need has been created. It’s typically an event.
00:02:48:15 – 00:03:23:19
Paul
And so now they’re in a position to start to consider finding a solution for that that need something that’s happened. So I think I may have given this example when we discuss in our last webinar the Life Stage, but Men’s Wearhouse was I think I didn’t use this example. I wasn’t until I had something happened to me which was graduating from college that triggered me into moving into a transactional stage.
00:03:24:00 – 00:04:02:06
Paul
Now, men’s warehouse in my life stage of my consumer buying cycle, they spent quite a bit of time with me building relationship and they told me I was going to like the way I look. But in that stage of my buying cycle, there was nothing that was going to motivate me to buy until something happened. So in that particular example for Men’s Warehouse and for me, when I graduated college, that moment triggered me into a very specific situation that triggered me into moving in that transactional mode.
00:04:02:14 – 00:04:24:24
Paul
So I needed to get a job, so I had to look the part. So understanding the kind of the frame of mind of a customer as they move out of this life cycle and the stage of life stage of the buying cycle and into the situation, stage of their buying cycle, understanding the frame of mind and where they’re coming from and where they’re moving towards is very helpful to understand.
00:04:25:14 – 00:04:56:19
Paul
So this stage is also where we can really identify our true target profile when we look at all the different people out there. I think demographics are are very important when we’re placing advertising, but when we’re creating marketing strategy, understanding how to go after a true target profile for your customer is very beneficial in the adults 25 to 54 demographic.
00:04:57:15 – 00:05:27:24
Paul
There is a broad section of people in there. I mean, I’ve got four or five siblings, actually, all but one of my siblings, seven of my siblings, all fit that demographic adults 25 to 54. And we all couldn’t be different. We’ve got people in different stages of life. So understanding in this situation stage, but the customers buying cycle is how you can dig deeper into a true target profile for your customer.
00:05:28:09 – 00:06:04:15
Paul
So when you look at, well, let’s use Men’s Wearhouse again as an example. So they are not going to or they would be unwise to spend a lot of time on going after my wife or my sister. Now they might participate in some of the buying decisions maybe on style when we’re in the store. But at this stage in the customer’s buying cycle, looking at all of the different situations that trigger going from a relational mode to a transactional mode is how you start dialing in who the best customers are for you.
00:06:05:22 – 00:06:30:07
Paul
So understanding what motivates them to become transactional, we can use real estate as an example. You’ve got a lot of buyers that will move from this transaction or this relational to transactional mode, but what motivates them can be very different. Somebody who’s looking for a starter home, somebody who’s looking to expand to a bigger home because they’re having children, somebody looking to downsize.
00:06:30:13 – 00:07:02:14
Paul
All three of those fit in this customer pool, but which one of those is your best target profile? So by dialing in and saying, okay, what are all the potential situations that are going to trigger somebody coming out of this life stage, this relational mode and into a transactional mode, What are all of those triggers so that you can start dialing in and understanding which one is is the most profitable for you, the one that has the best market size for you?
00:07:03:09 – 00:07:29:21
Paul
Those are very important things, very helpful things as you’re building your marketing strategy, even before you start creating any messaging. Now, when we talk about creating messages and we start moving in from, okay, we’ve we’ve started our marketing strategy and looking at our overall marketing plan, now we need to start creating assets to deploy tactically in our marketing strategy and into advertising.
00:07:30:18 – 00:07:57:08
Paul
Understanding that messaging and the messages that matter to your target profile is really important. So at this stage when we’re coming out of this life stage of the consumer buying cycle, we’re still we’re still very much relational, We’re moving more transactional, We’re facts and figures are going to matter more as we move through the rest of the stages of your customers buying cycle.
00:07:57:19 – 00:08:30:15
Paul
But this stage is really informative for that relational messaging, which again, if you remember from the last webinar that makes up 90 plus 95% of our consumer lives, we spend our customers spend that much time in a relational mode. So understanding the situations that trigger our customers and from being relational to transactional helps us really craft messages that matter to them.
00:08:31:09 – 00:09:00:06
Paul
And then obviously dialing in, we don’t want to do is have a one or two messages that try to capture three or four target profiles because then it’s going to your message is going to miss on all of them. You need to really dial in and find out. So if my wife and I both fit that adults 25 to 54 and yet we couldn’t be more different, creating a message that’s going to resonate with me and creating a message that’s going to resonate for my wife is very important.
00:09:00:13 – 00:09:43:14
Paul
If you try to just do one broad message or two broad messages and you’ve got multiple target profiles, you’re just going to be less effective. And that’s where a lot of frustration creeps in, you know, and you spend the time to create some marketing and some marketing assets to deploy in advertising. And then you wonder why is this not resonating as much as you’re not really digging in to your target profiles, those customers that really matter the most to you, and then creating that message that’s tailored to them relationally and then preparing for the transactional information that’s going to be needed as they move through to further site, further steps along the buying cycle.
00:09:44:04 – 00:10:19:01
Paul
So if you want better outcomes, then making sure that your messages are tailored to those target profiles is going to be really important. And then understanding which platforms are going to provide you the what you need to reach those target profiles. So the situation is very it’s probably one of the most important steps to understand in the buying cycle, really digging into which customer is the best customer for you, the most profitable.
00:10:19:14 – 00:10:49:24
Paul
Staying away from being too broad in your messaging, really dialing in and creating messages that build that relationship that are emotionally attractive, emotionally connected to your customers so that as they’re moving out of that, the life stage, as we discussed previously into this transactional stage, which is beginning in the situation that need that is coming up, that’s triggering them, that they’re going to have to satisfy that need somewhere.
00:10:50:07 – 00:11:19:13
Paul
So this this particular stage is very important to understand when you’re crafting your messages and looking at what’s to come in the remainder of a customer’s buying cycle. So if you have any additional questions, you know, we can spend a lot of time just in this by just really drilling down to what are all the different situations that would trigger somebody for a good or service into moving into that transactional mode.
00:11:19:20 – 00:12:04:15
Paul
And then you can really analyze in each one of those things what’s the best message, What’s what’s the most important thing to that particular customer that’s experiencing that need, that’s moving them into transactional? So the next webinar we’ll have is February 14th, and that’s stage three of your customers buying cycle. It is looking at the options. So we’ve we’ve looked at links and what is going on in the mindset of a customer and that that really depending on the good or service can be quite some time living in that life stage and then moving into the situation stage of a need that is really moving him into a transactional mode.
00:12:04:15 – 00:12:31:14
Paul
So the next thing that a customer is going to experience in this buying cycle is looking at their options. And we’ll discuss that on February 14th of the relationship between the options that they have in front of them, what they’ve experienced before they get to those options and how you you you know, what you need to understand about capitalizing on on your positioning once they get to that that stage of their buying cycle.
00:12:32:04 – 00:12:59:21
Paul
So please reach out if you have any additional questions, I’d love to have a conversation with you. And I look forward to February 14th at noon Eastern for our next installment of the Know Thy Customer Webinar series. And they use with to.