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The Needs-Driven Customer:
Creating Buyer Need
The visitor to your site, who got there because he or she needs the products or services you sell, is your best customer, and as such, your site should create and emphasize the need that drives the sale.
I’ve got a little problem…
People turn to the web for all kinds of information. It’s fast, accessible and anonymous. So, a web user with an odd-looking rash is stopping by that medical information site, not out of curiosity, but in search of answers. Problems like this are much easier to deal with online than in the doctor’s office, though the web advice should always be taken with a grain of salt since you don’t know where it came from or who wrote it.
In these cases, search engine users usually enter keywords that contain the condition about which they want to learn more, i.e., odd-looking rashes – a subject no one wants to discuss with anyone!
While these are, indeed, needs-driven buyers, they may not know it yet. Yours may be the first site they visit to learn more about treatments or solutions for this or that. They may be browsers. One way to keep them from bouncing to another site is to present the problem and the solution(s) right at the top of the home page. The intent here is to identify with the visitor with a “no big deal” approach. “Got an unusual itch? Try this cream.”
I’m in big trouble…
This is the true, needs-driven buyer who will pay whatever it takes to get the information he or she needs now – today. Here’s a fairly common example you see all over the W3:
Are you about to lose your house to foreclosure?
Is the foreclosure notice nailed to the door?
The auction on Thursday?
Let us show you how to avoid foreclosure even if the foreclosure sale is just a couple of days away.
Now that’s a needs-driven buyer. And if you have an e-book download that tells people how to deal with this dire situation, you’ve got a buyer – even at $79.95. Why? Because that’s a buyer who needs good information fast – regardless of cost and $79.95 is a lot less than a trip to the lawyer. There’s “avoiding foreclosure and bankruptcy information” for sale from one end of the web to the other for one good reason. People need that information – now!
Unfortunately, many sites selling products and services employ scare tactics to generate sales.
If You Don’t Call Today
You Will Lose Your Home
Well, maybe, maybe not. And there’s certainly no guarantee that the information contained in this “avoiding foreclosure” e-book download is accurate, or even applies to the laws in your state, which differ from state to state BTW!
Sites that market to the needs-driven buyer should consider a more sympathetic, less threatening approach to sales. These people are already under an immense amount of stress and your web site headlines shouldn’t add to the load. Instead, be sympathetic and understanding, establish trust in the buyer through reassuring site text and close the sale. Oh, and it would really be great if you delivered a real, useful product or information instead of preying on the desperate. That’s just plain creepy.
Creating Need
The fact is, many visitors to a web site aren’t sure if they need the product or not. Listen, anyone can click off the Tiffany’s site and forego a sterling silver martini stirrer. It’s not a need in the lives of most people so it’s easy to make this buying decision. No. But what about other, more sensitive items?
What about drug testing materials for children or valued employees? In this case, the visitor may recognize the need for drug testing kits but still be on the fence about making an actual purchase because of the potential ramifications.
Pointing out the benefits of low-cost, accurate drug testing kits to the long-term health of the visitor’s child creates and strengthens the need in the mind of the visitor.
In the area of fashion and/or accessories, you can highlight your “must haves” based on your perceptions of future trends and, in some cases, create demand (need) by lowering prices, obtaining celebrity endorsements or just by giving your hand-painted bangles to Paris Hilton and hope for a windfall.
It wasn’t too long ago that no one worried about fungus living under toenails. Drug companies created the need for a medication to treat this condition by showing just how gross toenail fungus is – especially when it talks. Ugh! Today, people buy anti-fungal toenail medication by prescription, and if you read the list of side effects, you wonder why anyone would take this stuff. For toenail fungi? Who even knew it was such a problem?
Need is created by identifying a new “problem” and developing the means to manage that problem. This creates demand. The “solutions” to these problems include those developed by multi-national companies, but they also include your cure for boring meat loaf. The point is, many visitors to your site won’t realize that they need what you’re selling – to look better, feel better, make more money, be happier, smarter, healthier and worry-free.
Create need in the mind of visitors using site copy that doesn’t focus on the features of your product or service. Who cares? Focus on the benefits to the end users - the people who now recognize the need you’ve created.
If you can sell products and information to needs-driven customers, your conversion rate will soar as fewer browsers stop by. Instead, you get a qualified buyer eager to purchase the solutions you have for sale and the benefits you have to offer.
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