Picking customers in the right stage of the buying cycle will dictate how much work is needed; firstly for you to attract these searches to your site but more importantly how easy it will be to convert them.
Given the choice every site would like traffic that is close to making a purchase and as they are in the final stages of the buying cycle all they are now looking for is either the best price available or a final reissuance that the product they have chosen is the right one for them.
But in many of the more competitive niches these types of keywords are just out of our reach. So we are forced to look at keywords that may be further out in the buying cycle. This however is not always a bad thing as many of these types of keywords will be much easier to rank for which in turn will free up a lot more of your time and if you are spending less time trying to rank you can spend more time trying to get your traffic to convert.
If you decide to target searchers in the earlier stages of the buying cycle you will need a strategy that will help to bring these searchers through the cycle while keeping them on your site, here is how we do it.
I work for a company that sells barcode scanners so the best examples I can give will be related to this industry.
A shop keeper realizes that if he had a barcode scanner on his till his checkout process would be a lot quicker with fewer errors. The shopkeeper realizes that he has a need for barcodes scanner and this is the first stage of the buying cycle.
Once he has made the decision to buy a barcode scanner he then moves to the next stage of the cycle, when he begins to research what type of scanner he needs. All he knows at this point is that he needs a barcode scanner so that is what he types into a search.
The visitors that we attract at this stage of the cycle are very hard for us to convert, so to help move them further along the buying cycle we use some widgets that will give them an indication of the types and range of barcode scanners that are available on the market.
After he has been directed to our widget page he relishes that a hands free barcode scanner will be the best option for him.
Now that he knows he wants a hands free scanner he has moved to the next stage of the buying cycle, where begins to evaluate the different models and types of hands free scanners that are available. Even though he has narrowed down his search considerably there are still around 20 scanners that will suit his needs.
If he is extremely price sensitive he will most likely go with one of the cheapest options and by using our widget he can see that one of the cheapest is a Motorola LS9208 and as Motorola is a brand he recognizes he decides that this is his best option.
Now we have helped him to move right through the buying cycle. He began by looking for a barcode scanner right through to where he has decided the make and model of scanner that he needs.
He is now on to the final stage of the buying cycle, which in this case will be finding the cheapest supplier. At this stage we would expect him to search around for the best price for this scanner, but he has used our site on each stage of the cycle and in that time he has begun to build up a level of trust with us and as he is already on our site there is a good chance he will either send us an enquiry or give us a call.
I will admit that this is a simplified version of what usually happens but hopefully it will help to give you an idea of how you can successfully target potential customers in the early stages of the buying cycle and then use your own site to help move them through each stage of this cycle. Ok we don’t always get the sale but what we have found is that after people have used these widgets they are generally more willing to interact with us either through an enquiry or phone call.