General

What’s the best way to advertise a product? You might think that showing off the product and informing the public where they can buy it is enough, but that’s not always the case.

In fact, according to the Buyers Pyramid by Chet Holmes, only about three percent of the population pay attention to such advertisements. So how do you improve your advertising and increase sales?

The Buyers Pyramid might just have the solution you’re looking for. By examining it and why people don’t want to purchase products, you can persuade more people to buy your products.

Read on to learn about the Buyers Pyramid and how it can help your business.

What is the Chet Holmes Buyers Pyramid?

Chet Holmes’s Buyers Pyramid is a tool describing who businesses are targeting with their advertisements. However, it focuses on quantity rather than demographics. The pyramid divides the population into five categories based on their willingness to buy a product.

People in the market for smartphones right now are a good example to start with.

Buying Now

Starting at the top of the pyramid are those who are currently looking to purchase a new product such as a smartphone. This is the smallest section because it holds the smallest amount of people. Chet Holmes suggests that all businesses can assume that only three percent of the population are interested in buying products such as smartphones at any given time.

The people in this category are constantly shifting. People purchase new smartphones every day, and the next day a new group of people decides they need a new one too.

The good news is that there is a steady flow of people in and out of this category. The bad news is that this is the group that is paying the most attention to advertisements. 

They’re looking for advantages and disadvantages of every available smartphone, so they watch when a commercial comes on the television. They’re actively seeking out which phone and service provider are the best choice for them.

In other words, only three percent of the population is paying close attention to any advertisements a business releases.

Open to Purchasing

Below them are those who aren’t actively seeking a new smartphone but are open to buying one if a good opportunity presents itself. These people can often be persuaded with good deals and benefits with their purchase. According to the pyramid, this category contains between six and seven percent of the population at any given time.

Some of these people will choose to make a purchase. Others will decide they either don’t need to make the purchase or that it isn’t the right time to do so yet. 

These people are also paying attention to the advertisements businesses release. The difference is that they don’t pay as close attention, because they don’t feel a sense of urgency to make the purchase. The good news is that the right advertisement can persuade them to move into the “buying now” category.

Not Thinking About It

Below that group is people who aren’t thinking about buying a new smartphone at all. They’re content where they are and don’t see the need for buying products. According to the pyramid, this is about thirty percent of the population.

The good news is that this will eventually change. Their smartphones become outdated or damaged. 

But in the meantime, these people aren’t paying attention to advertisements. They don’t care to look at new smartphones because they haven’t considered that a new one might benefit them yet.

Occasionally, one might catch their eye and convince someone to move from this category into the “open to buying” or “buying now” categories. However, most remain in this category until time creates a need for them to buy.

In other words, public advertisements aren’t affecting this group very much at all. If a business wants to sell products to this group, they need to rethink their strategy.

Think They aren’t Interested

The next group is people who think that they aren’t interested. This is another thirty percent of the population. 

Unlike those that aren’t thinking about it, these people are convinced that they don’t need a new product right now. They don’t pay any attention to advertisements because they’re happy with what they have. It’ll be much harder to convince these people that they should purchase a new smartphone.

The good news is that many of these people may be interested in new products and the benefits they offer despite not wanting to purchase. They often move from this category to the “buying now” category if they can see the immediate benefits of purchasing the product.

Once again, however, businesses need to redirect their strategy if they want this group to purchase their products sooner rather than later.

Know They aren’t Interested

Finally, the last thirty percent of the population is at the bottom of the pyramid. This section consists of those who know they aren’t interested in making a purchase right now. 

They might have recently purchased a new smartphone, and therefore aren’t interested in the new one released a week later. Others may not feel like they need to hurry to get the newest one when their current one works fine.

They won’t pay attention to advertisements at all because they aren’t interested in new products. It doesn’t matter what fancy improvements to the technology they’re being offered. 

If they already purchased the newest smartphone, then there’s no persuading them to purchase another one so soon. They may feel they don’t need certain services from other industries like a chiropractor. The good news is that they’re already a customer that may persuade their friends to get one too. 

Others simply won’t be willing to listen to arguments for why they should purchase a new smartphone.

Why this is Relevant to Business Development

Many businesses turn to mass advertisements to inform the public about their products. This seems like a good idea, but it’s not enough to persuade everyone that they need to purchase that product as soon as possible.

Again, according to the pyramid, only about three percent of the population are paying serious attention to advertisements. These people are ready to buy right now and are weighing their options.

Another six to seven percent of the population is paying some attention to advertisements. The next ninety percent of the population isn’t paying attention or won’t be moved to make a purchase based on advertisements.

The final thirty percent of the population isn’t interested in purchasing at all. There is no amount of information about a product and its benefits that will persuade these people into buying products. 

The good news is that there’s about sixty-seven percent of the population that could still be persuaded into purchasing a product. Instead of trying to show these people what they’re missing, selling products to these people requires teaching them about what they currently have and other competitors on the market. 

The issue is that most companies advertise with a hard sell. Their ads don’t give a lot of information that’s relevant to the target audience. So when the ad says “call today,” only three percent of the population that sees it will respond.

The only question left is how to approach the other sixty-seven percent and convince them to buy a product such as attending tattoo art classes.

Things to Try to Increase Business Sales

There are three key things that you should be doing to encourage people to purchase your products. If you want your advertisements to reach more than just three percent of the population, then these are the things your ads should include in them.

Good Information is Key

The first and most important thing you can do for your advertisements is to include information. Answer all of the most basic questions that someone might ask before purchasing. Some good examples might be:

• What does the product do?
• How long will it last?
• How will it help someone?
• How is it better than previous products?
• Where can someone purchase the product?

Try to demonstrate the product and how it works if you can. Make sure there’s a place for viewers to go for more information if they still have questions. This gives those who are in the middle three categories a good place to start to learn more about your product.

If people don’t have information, then they won’t see the purpose of your product. Most people won’t go through the effort of doing a lot of research on their own. 

Informing the people about your product and how it helps them arms them with the knowledge they need to make a good purchase when they’re ready to. You have an opportunity to do better than your competitors by doing this. They’ll understand more about your product than other similar products, so you’ll increase your business sales much faster.

Try to get focus groups to test your products for you. Let them ask questions about the product. Anything questions that come up a lot should be addressed in your advertisements.

Talk about Them

Try to understand what it is your potential customers are looking for in a product. Different demographics are looking for different items to help them in their daily lives. Your advertisements should reflect the scale of what your product can do and how many people it can help.

You need them to understand that you’re there to help them. Show them that you understand the problem that they’re facing and that you have a solution to it. 

A great way to do this is to tell your audience about themselves. 

For example, when selling a computer, you want to think about who will want that computer. If its battery is designed to last for a long time, then targeting people who work on the go is a good idea. A gaming computer should advertise space and graphics quality to encourage video game players to purchase the computer.

Those who work with large files on computers a lot benefit from workstations with a lot of space on them. Furthermore, many people feel the need to multitask, so if a computer can run many programs at once, then this is a great selling point.

Your audience may not be experts on your product, but they know what would help them with their work or hobbies. Advertisements should show them that you know this too.

Encourage Planning Ahead

Finally, some people might be interested in your product, but not ready to buy it just yet. They may have recently purchased a similar product and want to wait until it isn’t usable before they purchase a new one. 

But eventually, everything needs to be replaced. When this happens, it’s always best for people to know what options they have available. They should know what products they want to purchase when it’s time to buy new ones.

You want your advertisements to encourage planning for the future for this reason. 

Let your advertisements arm potential customers with information. Make sure that this information stays updated and useful to anyone who might move into the “buying now” section of the buyers’ pyramid. 

This way, when people are ready to move into the top two layers of the pyramid, your business is the first one that comes to mind. It’s also the one that they know the most about when they start shopping, so they’re more likely to buy your product than someone else’s.

And depending on the product, you may even encourage purchasing your product now so that customers have it later when they need it.

Use the Buyer’s Pyramid by Chet Holmes to Create Your Advertisements Today

The Chet Holmes Buyers Pyramid is a fantastic guide to increasing your business sales right now. By adjusting your advertising strategy, you can move more people into the “buying right now” category much faster. 

Furthermore, a great place to start is with your business’s website. Here at Fishhook Marketing, we specialize in helping your website generate more sales. We’ll design a website for you that is easy to use, looks professional, and earns you more money.

Contact us today and see how we can help your business.

Did you know that 94% of employees claim to perform repetitive, time-consuming tasks on a regular basis? As you might guess, a situation like this could easily diminish employee morale.

This is simply due to the fact that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and bogged down by all the tasks on your to-do list. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that automating as much as possible can help you avoid this situation.

Business process automation is essential if you want to be effective in your lead generation and lead nurturing efforts. So, which tasks should you automate? Let’s explore a handful of business processes for automation that you can focus on.

1. Lead Nurturing

Automating your lead nurture process is a great way to stay in touch with potential customers and keep your pipeline full. By setting up automated emails, you can make sure that your leads are getting the information they need to make a purchase. As time goes on, you can further configure your automation strategy.

Understanding how to automate lead nurturing will go a long way when it comes to obtaining the greatest results with minimal effort.

2. Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is the process of assigning a numeric value to each lead based on factors like demographics, firmographics, and engagement level. You can prioritize leads and focus your sales and marketing efforts on the hottest prospects.

By tracking the interactions that each lead has with your marketing materials, you can quickly identify which leads are ready to buy and which ones need a little more nurturing. If you rely on manual input to handle this task, your results will likely be far less accurate.

3. Customer Service Management

Automating your customer service management process can save you plenty of time and prevent headaches. By setting up an automated ticketing system, every customer inquiry gets routed to the right person on your team.

Integrating your CRM with your ticketing system will also help you keep track of every interaction with each customer. As a result, you can resolve issues quickly and efficiently.

4. Marketing Campaigns

From email marketing to social media, there are a number of ways to reach your target market. If you’re not careful, though, managing all of your marketing campaigns can be a full-time job.

By using marketing automation processes, you can streamline your efforts and free up your time to focus on other aspects of your business. It’s also possible to swap between multiple marketing strategies with little effort.

5. Employee Onboarding

Hiring the right employees is one of the most crucial aspects of running a successful business. Once you’ve found the perfect candidate, you still need to get them up to speed on your company culture and processes. Automating your employee onboarding process will ensure that every new hire is properly trained and prepared to do their job.

6. Inventory Management

Even for small businesses, inventory management can be a time-consuming and complicated task. Using an automated inventory management system allows you to keep track of your stock levels, reorder products when necessary, and even track sales data. You’ll then make more informed decisions about your inventory, allowing you to optimize this process in the future.

7. Financial Reporting

By automating your financial reporting process, you can save yourself hours of work each month. Financial reporting software can track your income and expenses, generate balance sheets, profit & loss statements, etc. You can then reinvest this time into other areas of your business. Under the right circumstances, this will take your revenue to new heights.

8. Employee Data Analysis

It’s crucial for businesses to understand how their employees are performing, but manually analyzing employee data can be a time-consuming process. Automated employee data analysis allows you to quickly identify trends and optimize your workforce.

One of the best times to use this type of tool is during employee reviews. Automation software will help you collect crucial performance data to ensure you have access to all the information you need.

You can check out this page to learn more about a reputable professional who can help get you on the right track.

9. Project Management

Project management can be a complex and challenging process, but automating it can help you stay on top of your key responsibilities. Automated project management tools will help you keep track of deadlines, assigned tasks, and progress reports.

They can also help you communicate with your team and track changes to your project plans. Facilitating collaboration is a key responsibility when it comes to project management. This type of automation will help ensure that workers can communicate as effectively as possible.

10. Sales Forecasting

Having a strong understanding of your sales performance is crucial for any business owner, but it’s impractical to keep track of everything for manual input.

Automating your sales forecasting process is an efficient way to save time that would better be spent elsewhere. Some of the most popular obligations that sales forecasting software can help you with include tracking sales data, identifying trends, and analyzing performance metrics.

11. Auditing

Automating your auditing process can help you streamline your operations and save money. Automated auditing tools help you track changes to your data, identify errors, and generate reports. Since auditing is generally so time-consuming, this is an attribute you can’t overlook.

You Should Never Overlook Business Process Automation

These are just a few of the essential business processes that you can automate to save time and improve your efficiency. So, be sure that you keep this guide in mind when moving forward so that you can make the decision that is best for your company.

Want to learn more about what we have to offer? Feel free to get in touch with us today and see how we can help.

79% of marketing leads don’t turn into sales.

It doesn’t matter how many sales calls you make or how many emails you collect. Unless you can turn those prospects into paying customers, your business will be stuck at the same stage forever.

And the reason you can’t convert those leads? It has nothing to do with how good your product or service is. A large part of this problem points to a faulty sales funnel. Or worse—not having any sales funnels at all.

But what if you’ve never heard of a sales funnel before? Or maybe you’ve tried to make one but it never got you results?

In this blog post, we’re going to take you from confused to convinced. Keep reading to learn all about what a sales funnel is, why your business needs one, and more. 

What Is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is the journey that your customers take on the way to buying your product or service. 

In marketing terms, this means taking people from leads to customers. A lead is a person who might eventually become your customer.

Each step of the funnel means that your potential customer is one step closer to buying from you.

The sales funnel usually starts with creating awareness about your product or service. Then, it moves prospects down the funnel to learn more about your offering. Finally, your funnel turns these potential customers into paying customers.

You don’t need to be a fancy marketing company to have a sales funnel. Any company can (and should) have a sales funnel, including:

• Retail stores
• Cinemas
• Bakeries
• Personal trainers
• Dentistry offices

The process is called a funnel because you start out with many potential clients. As they go through your funnel, the pool of potential clients narrows into your pool of paying customers.

You can visualize the sales funnel as an inverted pyramid. 

Sales Funnel Stages

Your leads will go through 4 main stages in your sales funnel:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action

In the awareness stage, your lead becomes aware of your product or service. They may start to research solutions to their problem online. They may also find your company through your online ad campaigns.

In the interest stage, your lead is interested in learning more about your product or service. They might visit your website or send you an email inquiry.

In the decision stage, your lead may be in several different sales funnels. This includes your competitors. At this stage, they’re deciding whether to choose your product or your competition’s.

To decide, they may look at online reviews, ask on social media, or ask friends for referrals.

And finally, your lead will make a purchase in the action stage.

A Sales Funnel Example

Let’s look at a simple sales funnel example.

You own a clothing store, and a customer goes into your shop (awareness). They see a sales rack for discount winter coats (interest).

They go through the rack, try on a few coats, and think about whether they can get a better deal somewhere else (decision). Finally, they decide they want one of your coats and go to the cashier (action).

Tips for Each Step of the Sales Funnel

For these tips, we’ll use another sales example. Let’s say you sell products that help students manage their time better. These include video courses, e-books, and planners. 

During the awareness stage, you don’t want to be pushing your products. This will only turn potential customers away.

It’s true that some customers may love your offering and buy it right away. But more often, you’ll need to slowly convince them that your product is the right choice.

Once you’ve gotten their attention, you’re in the interest stage. You still don’t want to be too “salesy” at this point. Instead, your goal is to help the potential customer.

Build trust with them by showing your expertise. Even better is if you can give them a quick win.

For our student time management example, this could be a blog post on three quick ways to save time when studying for exams.

The decision stage that comes next is critical. Your ideal customer may be looking at your e-book and another company’s e-book. This is where you want to convince them to buy from you.

A few ways you can do this include:

• Offering free shipping
• Giving them a discount code
• Adding a bonus product like a workbook

If you already have their emails, you can send these bonuses that way. You can also configure your email marketing service to send discount codes when people leave a product in their cart.

Finally, you need to show your appreciation once your customer reaches the end of your funnel. The action stage is where you focus on keeping those customers.

Make sure to thank them for their purchase. You can also offer tech support, be there to answer questions, or ask them for feedback.

Why Businesses Need a Sales Funnel

In marketing, a touchpoint is when a potential customer comes into contact with your brand.

Most businesses need 8 touches to even get an initial meeting with a sales prospect. 

For example, if you are a business coach, your potential clients will need to see your brand an average of 8 times before they book a discovery call with you.

These touchpoints could include:

• Going on your website
• Looking at product/service pages
• Reading a blog post
• Looking at your social media
• Reading a review

And even if they book a discovery call with you, your work isn’t over yet—you still need to make a sale. By having a sales funnel, you make this job easier for yourself as you have the customer’s journey planned out.

The Benefits of Sales Funnels

One of the biggest benefits of sales funnels is that they keep your sales strategy focused.

A scatterbrained approach that’s different with every client will only confuse you. A sales funnel helps you know exactly which steps you want your potential customers to take on their way to buying from you. 

A good sales funnel also helps you get more sales. Once you’ve created your first few funnels, take a look at which sales strategies got people further down your funnel. Write down which ones didn’t work as well as you hoped.

Perhaps discovery calls worked really well at getting more paying clients, while your live webinars didn’t. 

Once you’ve created a few sales funnels, you can use them to forecast how much revenue you’ll make. You can forecast this because you’ll have a good idea of how leads move through your sales funnel.

Maybe 5% of your email list signs up for your new programs, for example.

This helps you budget and decide on which programs/products to sell in the near future.

You can also look at each stage of the funnel and see what’s working and what’s not. This helps increase your profitability while spending less on marketing.

If you spend money on social media ads, check where leads are coming from. If most of your leads are coming from Facebook, you can cut down on other ads that aren’t getting you as many potential customers.

Effective Sales Funnels and What They Include 

To make an effective sales funnel, you must design it specifically for your business. This includes the products/services you offer.

It also includes all the touchpoints you need to get leads from awareness to action.

If this is your first sales funnel, you won’t have any data to start from. Use a sales funnel template to help you get started.

You also want to take a look at what other successful businesses in your industry are doing.

Go to your competitor’s websites and pretend you’re a customer. How did you become aware of the business? What would make you want to buy from them? How are they offering value (even for free)?

An effective sales funnel is also tailored to your ideal customer. 

This means that it will include content and offers that are relevant and appealing to them.

Finally, an effective sales funnel is continually optimized. This is based on the data you collect as your leads move through your funnel. You’ll have this data as soon as you launch your first funnel. 

You can use this data to improve the funnel’s effectiveness and increase sales.

How to Create a Sales Funnel

Learning how to create a sales funnel may be overwhelming at first, but it gets easier the more times you do it.

You can set up a sales funnel in 5 steps:

1. Create a landing page
2. Give value
3. Create an email campaign
4. Encourage them to buy
5. Follow up

Let’s look at each of these steps in detail.

Creating a Landing Page

The first step in your marketing sales funnel is creating a landing page for your product or service. 

A landing page explains what your company and product are all about. Potential customers will get to your landing page when they click on your ad. They can also get to it if they sign up for your webinar or click to download your e-book.

One of the main purposes of your landing page is to get people’s email addresses. You’ll need this to communicate with potential customers later.

Remember that you need to get people’s attention if you want them to get to your landing page at all. To do this, put your content out where your target audience can see it.

You can also run ads on the social media platforms your target audience uses.

Give Value

In exchange for people’s email addresses, you want to give them something valuable. 

For example, your landing page could include a link to download your free e-book in exchange for their email address.

This is the stage where you build trust and show your expertise. 

Create an Email Campaign

Next, use email sequences to give even more value to people. Write email content that speaks to your target customers’ pain points and show them how your product or service can help.

This is called an email drip campaign. Drip campaigns are time-based, automated emails. For example, your drip campaign could be three emails (one for each week).

Remember that people who’ve just signed up to your email list aren’t usually ready to buy from you. The drip campaign will help them get to know your company and trust you.

Drip campaigns also save you time. You only write them once, and then they’re automatically sent to new subscribers.

Encourage Them to Buy

Now that you’ve built up enough trust, it’s time to offer them your product. To inspire leads towards the “action” stage, this offer needs to be amazing.

This is where you want to offer a discount, a free trial, or a huge bonus. You can also make this a time-limited offer to encourage people to take quick action.

Follow Up

There are two ways to follow up when people have reached the end of your sales funnel.

For new customers, focus on engaging them with gratitude and ideas for how to use their new product. For example, you can offer them product tutorials or give them coupon codes for future purchases.

If someone didn’t buy your product, create another automated email sequence for them. Keep in touch with them. They may not have been ready to buy your product right now, but they might want to in the future.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on your conversion rates. This will help you tweak your sales funnel to be even more effective in the future.

Ready to Create Your Own Sales Funnels?

Creating sales funnels is a necessity for any business that wants to get serious about generating leads and sales. 

And when you work on creating relationships with potential customers, you build trust over time. This reduces doubt or hesitation when they decide to buy something from you!

Still confused about how to create your own sales funnel? Fishhook Marketing can help. Our extensive business expertise means we’re well-equipped to help you convert visitors into paying customers.

Ready to learn more? Book a marketing consultation with us today!