Before you decide on selling anything online, you need to first determine who your customer is, what they often purchase, and why they are purchasing online.

This is called "customer comprehension". The better you understand your customer, the easier it will be to sell stuff to them. Obviously, at the core of any business, the ultimate goal is to create a profit. To create a profit, you must have customers and you must be able to sell to these customers.

One of the most common mistakes I see people make is promoting to a customer (or audience) before they fully understand who their audience is. It is very easy to waste money promoting what you "think" people want, rather than what they are actually looking for.

Don't make assumptions on your customers, gain an understanding. You will be much more successful.

Before we go any further, we need to understand the steps someone takes between the time they learn of a product or service, to the time that they actually make a purchase. That is what my goal is to help you understand.

Let's look at some known facts about a customer:

(1) Customers rarely buy on their first point of contact to a product
(2) It typically takes a person 7 times (this could be website visits, email newsletter, etc.) before they make a purchase online.
(3) Customers do not buy from people they don't trust
(4) Customers are exchanging "money" for something that will improve upon their existing situation
(5) Customers have more access to product information and reviews than they ever have
(6) Most customers can see through scammy promotions, in fact are turned off

I am going to show you how to catch people later in their buying cycle so you can increase your chances of someone "buying" versus having to walk them through all points of contact. This will simplify the selling process drastically!



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debolet Premium
Hello, I really enjoyed this Customer Purchase Life Cycle. This reminds me of what I read sometimes ago about Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM). CRM developed in the 90s is an organization innovation requiring the participation of the entire organization to propel the customer into the heart of the firm. Relationship marketing entails forming relationship with customers and managing the relationships for long-term profitability.
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Larry88 Premium
That is how I ended up in WA this time. I did a lot of web searching and looking into what it actually was before I clicked that link. I found it on someone's blog but then went scouting through the internet. Sorry to whoever's blog that was, I signed up through this website. :-)

The first time I just joined a new shiny opportunity that popped up on my screen (WA). Before I got in here to check it out another new opportunity popped up.
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susanb940 Premium
This is good advice for off and online your relationship to your customer is the key to a lot! For example, there are places that I shop all the time and yet could get it for less elsewhere, so why do I pay more, because of my relationship with the staff. :) and or owner and they treat me well.
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susanb940 Premium
This is great advice, Kyle I have also learned through a very long love affair with marketing that even at times, 7 isn't the lucky number. I once had a customer that had seen what I had, poo, pooed it and then, joined a year later! So a little extra advice for marketers is don't turn your nose up or get offended when people tell you no, treat them with dignity and respect and friendship. You just never know where kindness will get you!
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LDSewell Premium
For most of my life I have been involved in two recurring things - training people as an instructor teaching various topics from military training to real estate to trucking including safety, risk management, regulatory compliance, and related topics and many other things. The other constant thing most of my life has been some kind of selling. I became a real estate agent and investor in my early 20's and continuing for many years. Then later spent more than a couple of decades (and still counting) recruiting and training truck drivers and trucking business owners.

Building trust has been and remains a constant requirement. People are hard to train (impossible to do it well!) when they do not trust you and have confidence that you actually care about them and want to help them plus you actually know what you are doing well enough to have something of value to teach them!

Treating people with courtesy, dignity, and respect also goes a long way. So does honesty - even when it may cost you a sale or a recruit because you tell them the truth... In the long term, it leads to better relationships and better results based on all I have learned in life so far anyway.

Excellent training and thanks for the information!


Best regards,

L.D. Sewell
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Kyle Premium Plus
Yes, absolutely. Although those don't seem like they are necessarily connected directly to "conversions", trust, and honest and being able to portray your content in the light of dignity are the biggest TRUST building elements. They are the biggest conversion elements too.
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