There are three things that make all the difference in marketing.
The first of these is trust.
If people don't trust you, they won't buy your services. They won't want to work with you. They won't want to be coached by you. They won't want to do business with you.
The second is time.
Trust takes time to build.
When was the last time you met somebody for the first time and said, will you marry me?
Will you have my children? Let’s live together?
Maybe in Hollywood movies, but never in actual life.
And why is that? Because trust and relationships take time to develop.
It really takes time to build a relationship. Just like it takes time to build a relationship with a lover, or with a significant other. It takes time to build a relationship with your clients.
You don't build trust at one time, in one place, with one touch point (the point with which people interact with you online), we have to have multiple touch points.
We have to have multiple places where people can interact and engage with us.
Think about it for a minute. If you show up and say, ‘hey look at me. I'm wonderful. Here's the thing I do. And I can help you with this and that, buy my stuff!’ And then you never show up again after that. Do you think that will build trust?
Do you think you will get somebody to that point of feeling, wow, this person gets me? This person wants the best for me. This person is a constant in a chaotic universe. I want to buy what they are offering.
How do you build trust with your prospects online?
Let me show you how it works...
In this simple graph, along the bottom, we have time and touchpoints and on the top we have trust.
There will be a place, a point when trust reaches its optimum level. Now, this is when a prospect, your potential client is ready to use your services, to buy your products.
In marketing, we call this ‘buyer readiness’.
They're ready because not only are they at the right trust level, but enough time has elapsed, and enough touch points interacted with in order for them to be primed and ready to make the purchase.
The decision to buy is solely their choice, not yours.
That's critical, ninety-eight out of a hundred entrepreneurs don't get this right. They don't get it. They always jump to or assume that prospects are at that optimum level, ready to make the purchase decision. ‘Buy this thing, buy that thing’. It never works.
When were you last accosted in the street and you signed everything away on the spot? The buyer decision process just doesn't work like that. We don't work like that. We're not built like that.
How Can We Improve Our Marketing?
What you can do is build marketing that works inside of these universal principles of being, universal principles of how we make buying decisions as humans.
And how do we create the conditions for people to want to buy from us? As a coach, an expert, a professional service provider, you show up.
This is the third thing, You show up consistently, saying in the same thing day in and day out, and what happens over time, is trust increases…
In time, prospective clients make their way to the place where they're ready to make that purchase.
Therefore, The Funnel In Marketing is Critical.
Now, the interesting thing here is that the optimum level, that readiness for purchase, varies from person to person. It varies from the kind of product or service that you are buying too.
Imagine you are going to buy a car… You wouldn't just steamroll your way in half asleep, looking at your phone and pick a car on the lot without thinking, and say, 'yeah, I love that one. I’ll take it.' Without a thought.
No, the buying decision doesn't happen like that.
Maybe when we're buying a tin of beans in the supermarket, we're on our phone, we're pushing the trolley, we're ignoring stuff… We pick something up. We drop it in the trolley without thinking. It doesn't really make much difference, but not for significant purchases.
Time and the number of touch points needed vary with distinct types of buying decisions, in marketing we call this 'level of involvement', but the principal never changes.
The principle is always the same.
Why do you think the brand is so important?
Brand is all about consistency.
Branding is about you showing up as that person that you claim to be over and over and over and over without changing your message, without changing your tune. Always saying the same things. That is the repetition that comes along with the multiple touchpoints. That builds trust.
Repetition and consistency create optimum levels of buyer readiness in your prospects.
Repetition and consistency create trust and brings prospects to a place where they know and understand and appreciate you for who you are.
My challenge to you is to stop claiming in words alone to be the person you say you are. Stop saying ‘I will do this and I will do that...’
Create content NOW!
Get into ACTION!
Do it now, do it today. Do it again tomorrow. Do it again the day after and never stop creating valuable content to serve your audience.
Valuable content is part of the critical process of creating multiple touchpoints to build trust. Multiple touch points and multiple pieces of content will build trust and create an audience of people that want what you offer.
An audience ready and primed to buy your stuff, to be in your world, to want to know more about how you can help them.
Go, create, and be you in the world!
