Why People Buy One Thing Over Another

Have you ever taken the time to think about why people buy one thing over another? Whether a product or a service, what is it that flips the switch for them; the thing that makes them say “Yes” to one and “No” to the other?

It’s a pretty important question for anyone in sales and/or marketing. If you’re unclear on why prospects purchase the things they do, you’re going to find it close to impossible to entice them into doing business with you.

At the most basic level, marketing (and selling) is about educating your target audience about the features and benefits of the products or services you have to offer. Or, as stated at PsychologyToday.com, “Simply stated, a buying decision is the result of a consumer learning pathway where the consumer must learn about a product or service and relate it to their specific situation to make a favorable buying decision.”

Now, there are two parts to that sentence that need our attention: the “learning pathway” bit, and the “relate it to their specific situation” section.

The reason these are so important is because, through your messaging, you can help your target audience both learn and relate to the products or services you have to offer. In fact, these are the only things your marketing message should be about.

How Your Knowledge Base Affects Your Messaging

In a previous post about Benefits Based Copy, there is a sentence that some of you may have glossed over. The gist of it is, “the fact that you know these features will make your ideal client’s life better does not mean that they do”.

The point we really want to make here is that, sometimes, the more we know about something the easier it is to take for granted that others know something about it too. In other words, our familiarity does not breed contempt, but rather, the more we know the more we assume too much about our target audience.

For example, we know a former mattress salesman who once encountered a customer who asked, “Are there springs in that box spring?” Nonplussed, his response was, “Uhm, yes.”

You see, he thought the name alone was so basic and self-explanatory it needed no explanation. But, for his potential buyer, the name had little to no meaning. It was just the thing that goes under a mattress to keep it off the floor.

It would be easy to make fun of this naïve customer however, it’s more important to understand the impact this had on our salesman; the powerful realization that he had let the customer down. That, simply because he had intimate knowledge of his subject, he had no business assuming his client base did as well.

It struck him that the more he learned, the more expert he became, the more he forgot to talk about the basics. And that his ability to share the most fundamental facts of the products he sold would go a long way to determining his success at selling the products. At the same time, when appropriate, he had the wide base of knowledge to display his expertise when the situation required.

Ultimately, it was not that he knew too much, just that he needed to always be mindful that many people would know far less and it was his job to help them learn what they needed to make an informed buying decision.

Help Your Prospects Learn

Imagine for a moment that you have a degree in advanced calculus. If you happen to get hired to teach fourth graders, your knowledge base will be fairly useless since they are still learning addition and subtraction. If you forget that simple fact, you’ll make a poor teacher.

Similarly, if your marketing message ignores the basics and focuses on things that only experts tend to know, you’ll miss the mark more often than not.

This might mean a coach who talks exclusively about reaching goals will find it difficult to entice prospects who have trouble setting goals. That’s a fundamental step in business, life, and other types of coaching that can be easy to forget. Goal setting is a skill that must be learned before a client can be taught how to achieve their goals.

And so, taking from the example of our mattress salesman above, when you’re developing your marketing message, be careful you are not sharing knowledge your audience may not yet be ready to learn. Never assume, as he did, that they have a foundation of knowledge similar to your own.

No, they have a desire but lack the knowledge to make it happen. That is where you come in, and that is why your message, when properly constructed, will resonate with them.

Unfortunately, getting the answer to the “Why do they buy?” question only gets you so far. Once you know that, you then have to ask yourself, “How do I get them there?”

We are here to help you with that and have put together the team and the tools to help you do so.We know this is a lot to take in from a single blog post, and it can be intimidating. That’s why we have a couple of ways for you to gather more information about getting your message right. First, you can click here to learn how we can help you build a foundation to get started or click here to schedule a complimentary consultation and get your questions answered.