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Touches to Transactions

Modern business development wisdom holds that in today’s advertising-saturated world, it takes at least seven to 30 “touches,” or reminders, before a consumer takes action. Although that may seem like a lot when you first hear it, if you think about how you act when you’re the consumer, it begins to make sense.

Your online networking can account for several of those 30 touches (social media, online marketing, and Internet PR can provide even more touches). But to be effective, you need to think about how touches become transactions.

Touches and Trigger Points

We manage to ignore tens of thousands of advertising messages every day, mostly because they promote products we aren’t currently interested in buying. The key term here is “currently.” When you realize you need a product or service, suddenly you tune into the messages related to the product/ service that you had been screening out.

The situation that changes everything is a trigger point. It’s an event that moves you from being someone who hasn’t thought about making a purchase or who has been casually window shopping to someone who needs to buy right now. The seller usually can’t change the trigger point (although they try to influence it with education, sales, and specials), but you can make sure you’re making enough touches so that when a triggering event moves a prospect from looker to buyer, he or she will think about your company.

Let’s use a car purchase as an example. If your car is reasonably new and in good working order, you may not be thinking about buying a new car. You probably tune out car ads, e-mails from dealerships, or radio commercials about great specials. Or maybe you’ve been thinking about buying a new car—sometime. You might be casually reading car ads, visiting dealer Websites, paying some attention to commercials, even slowing down when you pass the dealer’s lot for a good look. You may even meet someone from the dealership at a networking event and make a positive connection. But for now, it’s all still window shopping.

Then a triggering event occurs. Your existing car is in an accident, and it will cost more to fix it than it’s worth. Suddenly, you’re in the market for a new car, and you need it right now.

Until that triggering event happened, there wasn’t much the car dealers could do to hurry up your purchase. You bought the car based on your schedule of when you needed one, not on the dealership’s schedule of when it wanted to sell one. Business owners often forget that it’s the customer’s need that drives the purchase cycle more than it is driven by sales and specials. But there’s a very important thing to remember: When a customer moves from shopper to buyer, the company that has made the most touches through networking and marketing is first in line to get his or her business.

Go back to the car example. When that prospect was window shopping, the dealership with the best Website, or the showroom that was polite about a test drive without a commitment (a form of networking) is likely to be the first place that prospect goes when he or she moves from shopper to buyer. Those touches pay off in top-of-mind awareness.

Where does online networking come in? Well-placed online networking is a low-pressure way to remain in the forefront of a prospect’s awareness with touches where there’s interest but no trigger for an immediate purchase. It can also keep your company in touch with current customers so that when add-ons or upgrades become necessary, you’re first in line for the business. Regular, strategic online networking increases your company’s visibility and extends your credibility as an expert. Both visibility and credibility are important to future sales, since prospects must remember you and must believe that you provide a quality product or service.

The key here is not to view online networking as a way to provide a barrage of “buy now” messages. Instead, think of how you can engage the prospect in a conversation about whatever product or service you sell, with the immediate focus on offering helpful information related to the problem/pain/fear.

Some examples of this might include being consistently present through networking, making helpful comments on blogs related to your industry, and contributing bylined content on Websites that your ideal prospect uses frequently. If your customer is constantly on the go, a well-timed mobile text ad might encourage a convenience purchase or entertainment choice. A great e-newsletter can extend the conversation with a prospect or customer, gather valuable feedback, and provide subtle education about the benefits of the products and services you offer. With an autoresponder, you can send a targeted series of follow-up e-mails to draw a new prospect further down your sales funnel. A good online shopping cart can suggest related products that a purchaser might wish to add to the order, or provide a “thank-you” coupon or discount to encourage a future purchase. Making a personal connection on professional networking sites can help put a face to the name. The more you hone your networking productivity, the more time you’ll be able to devote to effective business development.

While you usually can’t close a sale before the customer has experienced a trigger point, once you’ve established a relationship, you have the chance to educate the prospect about that trigger point. Perhaps the best time to buy a new piece of equipment isn’t when the old equipment falls apart. Perhaps there are trade-in advantages or depreciation advantages to buying on a shorter purchase cycle. Maybe you can point out benefits that deal so much better with the problem/pain/fear than the old product that the prospect decides to buy sooner rather than later. You’ve altered the trigger point through education, and because your company provided the information in an ongoing relationship, you’re likely to be first in line to get the sale.

When someone connects to you on a networking site, subscribes to your e-newsletter, blog, Facebook page update, or Twitter feed, they’re agreeing to get updates (information) from you on a regular basis. If you share information that speaks to his or her needs, every update does double duty; it reminds the prospect about you (a touch) while it provides useful information (deepening your relationship and educating to alter the trigger point). Online networking makes it easier and less expensive (and less intrusive) than ever before to stay in contact as touches prepare for a trigger.