People go through anywhere from 20 to 100 major and minor decisions before purchasing. They ask: Am I in the market for this? Should I seek information? Where should I seek information? How can I try it safely? Each time they answer one of these questions, they're making a decision. When you know the process, you can give the information they need at each step of the way, leading them willingly and cooperatively through the decision process.
Properly conceived database marketing takes advantage of this ... when we understand the buying cycle, we can then insert our messages to individuals as the make the myriad of little decisions that lead to the final purchase decision.
It begins with listening.
Listening in this case is more like observing. Plan your outbound initiatives with several different types of response mechanisms. For example, provide a link to a white paper about how to save money, another one on how to get added speed (value), another one to get name of nearest store, another to look at the online catalog and another to go now to the shopping cart.
When the target selects any of these options, they send you observable clues as to what their most pressing concerns are and how far along they are toward making a purchase decision. You then have built into your response mechanism additional communications to confirm this knowledge or to move them along to the next decision point in their process. This is listening and responding.
But with data-driven marketing, you can go even a step further. You store these various decisions into the customer's personal profile and gradually you build a picture of how best to deliver value to this customer. You can then also aggregate similar or like-minded individuals into mini-campaigns aimed at satisfying group needs in a more cost efficient manner.
Comments