Buying Process | Letters From Dan

The Buying Process – Writing Ads for your Audience

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: buying process, spam, steps of the buying process, well written ads
Posted in Consumer Buying Process

So, I’ve written quite a bit about the buying process lately. I think that’s mainly because marketers don’t always understand. For instance if you’re an affiliate marketer and you write an ad that says:

Nikon 30D Camera

Now, suppose you write that ad because you’ve become an affiliate of a camera website and the Nikon is a popular camera. Does it make any sense to send that person to a landing page with a title like:

Nikon 30D vs the new Canon SLR

NO! It doesn’t. Do you know why? It doesn’t make sense because the person who clicks on your ad (based on what you wrote) is beyond comparing features in their buying process. They want to be taken to the page that shows the price and the “BUY NOW” button. Anything less than that and you’re wasting your money on ads.

And speaking of how you write your ads, make sure you spend some time testing what’s written. A poorly written ad won’t get you anywhere (well, maybe you’ll get a spot in this blog) :)

Here’s an example of a poorly written (from a non-native English speaker, most likely), and highly humorous ad – just for fun. I got it in my spam e-mail folder today:

Christmas, Happy!
Hey, what are you doing lately? I’d like to present to you a very good company that I knew.
Its home page company: www.Ele-sky.com
If you have any needs, please contact the company Email.
They can offer all kinds of electronic products that you need, such as motorcycles, laptops, mobile phones, digial cameras, , x box, ps3, GPS, MP3 / 4, etc. Please take time to look at that there must be something you’d like to purchase.
Hope you have a good state of mind in buying your company!
Regards

Please check out these posts on the Buying Process as well:

enjoy!

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Your Web Page and The Buying Process

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: buying process, first website visit, landing pages, steps of the buying process, website visitors
Posted in Consumer Buying Process

This is the third time I’ve written about The Buying Process in the last few months. This morning I met with some folks who hadn’t really spent a lot of time thinking about the buying process of their consumer. So after talking about it a bit, I wanted to add a little bit more.

Please check out these two posts on the Buying Process as well:

Your First Time Web Visitors First Glance

From a “buying process” perspective, what process must someone go through internally to sign up and become a member?

Here’s my thoughts on that:

They must find the site
They must find it interesting enough to read something or browse and not press the back button
What they’re reading or browsing must be interesting enough to signal their brain that this is a good site
After they’ve decided it is a good site, they must also have the feeling that this site will be good for them tomorrow or next year
(We need them to take an action at this point). They must be able to see how to bookmark the site, send a link to a friend, sign up for the newsletter, or join.

Image by missjdub via Flickr
(Ultimately, we MUST be able to contact them somehow. There is no option here. We must be able to entice them back to the site.) To fork over their e-mail for example, they must be a reason to do so (newsletter, gift or free report), they need to see NO SPAM language and be absolutely clear of what they’re getting.
Then when they get the “confirm you want this newsletter” e-mail, they must still be confident and happy that they signed up.

So when you look at your website landing pages (where visitors first come in contact with you), I wonder do they know they are the target market? Do they know they are welcome and part of the group? Do they know that your site isn’t directed at someone else? Do they know that this site pertains to them? Do they know this is a place they can feel comfortable and read – not a place to have their guard up and be ready to be “sold” at any minute? Can they smile and feel like they’re home? Do they know we welcome them and they can come back?

After that long diatribe (and if you agree with the above), what do we need to do to satisfy those steps in the buying process? Look at the website Pre-boomermusings. It’s a relatively new site, but the front page respects the buying process.

It says “for people born between 1936 and 1945”. That’s very clear. He could have said “A blog for us pre-boomers”, but chose to help the user understand they’re included. The photo of Don reinforces who it is for. The word “boomer” in there reinforces who it is for. There being no ads helps make you comfortable and not put up your “hide the wallet” guard.

Can you tell that a person born in 1938 might be interested right away? It’s no “mecca of web design”, but it does have a clear message.

Does your site?