Components of a Consideration System

Last week I walked through the concept of a “Consideration System” - the first stage in building relationship with our ideal customers.

This week, let’s take some time to break down how to create a consideration system for our businesses…

Stage 1: Attract Our Ideal Customer into Our Ecosystem

This stage is all about getting our business or product into the prospect’s sphere of influence. There are many ways to go about this, from paid ads to word of mouth, to flyers, social media posts, telemarketing, and so on.

Think of this stage as the very first time that a prospect has seen any of our stuff. The goal is simply to attract their eyeballs and make them aware that we exist.

Once we have their attention, our second goal of this stage is to invite them to join our ‘ecosystem’. This could be as simple as asking them to give us a follow, subscribe to our channel, or (my personal favorite) invite them to fill out an opt in form. We want to collect as much information as possible at this point so that we can guide them along the journey to make a purchase from us down the road.

Asking for a follow or subscribe is easy, for opt in forms, we typically have to give them something of value in exchange (this is our Lead Magnet or Engagement Offer - which I discussed in depth a few weeks ago). The more information we can collect, the more we will know about the prospect, and the better our messaging will be to guide them along the journey in Stage 2.

Once we have them in our ‘ecosystem’ - either as a follower or on our own database - we can shift our focus to nurture and guidance. This is where the relationship building really begins.

Bonus - with some platforms (such as Facebook), it is (currently) possible to track visitors with Pixels, allowing you to bypass the need to gain their contact information and allows you to retarget (follow around with ads) to keep them in your sphere of influence. [This is a great addition to your strategy, but shouldn’t be used in lieu of collecting contact information - you want to get your prospects into a database that you own and can control.]

Stage 2: Nurture and Guide

Now that we have our ideal customers into our ‘ecosystem’ or sphere of influence, it is time that we become professional relationship builders and professional sales people. [For those who need a refresher - sales is the process of Professional Helping Others to Make a Purchase Decision]

If you recall back from my article last week - I had asked you to think through how you made a recent purchase decision. I had asked you to think about all the ‘homework’ you did before making your decision. Likely this involved reviewing the website, checking out reviews, watching a video or two, possibly talking to someone, etc.

Now we bring this forward and think through what this means for our businesses and our products. How many different ways are our ideal customers looking for and consuming information on the products or services that we offer? What types of questions do they have? What are the most common objections? Do they watch videos, listen to podcasts, review infographics, review websites, search on Google…?

When we identify the most common questions and the most common methodologies of doing research, we can then prioritize the types of content we need to start with. For most of us, we have small teams and it is not (yet) possible to be in all places at once…and still be effective. It is really important that we focus on the most common questions and the most common modalities and create content around and for these first.

As an example…if I owned a restaurant, I would likely be heavily focused on cultivating reviews. Online reviews are usually the first place a prospect will go to determine whether the restaurant is worth trying or not. This means that I likely need to put in a reminder system to consistently ask for reviews from my current customers.

On the other end of the spectrum, if I am selling software, video demonstrations and FAQs on my website may be the most common starting point for prospects. In which case, I would spend more of my time creating short demo videos on various features and listing out answers to the most common questions.

Each business will be different, depending on the product or service and the type of customer the business is looking to attract. Identification and prioritization gets us started, then we can get to work and create content that guides our prospects to the destination we want to go.

What makes the Consideration System even more impactful is when we have collected a prospect’s contact information. When we have a name, email, and phone number, we have more ways in which we can guide them along the journey. With contact information in hand, we don’t have to rely on them only seeing us online via social media, paid ads, Google search, etc. We can be proactive, sending timely messages with some of our FAQ, demo videos, a rave review, etc.

The Consideration System should mirror much of our sales flowchart. The goal is to help the prospect identify that they have a challenge or gap, guide them to articulate that needs, and provide an opportunity to solve for them (with our product or service).

To build out a great nurture sequence (phone, text and email scripts, frequency, etc.) we have to take a look at our current sales process and work with closely with our sales teams.

In the coming weeks, we will be taking a deeper look into sales and sales psychology. We will be covering how this relates back to our marketing and how to nail the handoff from marketing to sales. Resulting is less missed leads and ultimately more new clients.

See you in the next one!

p.s. - as a primer to sales, our ActionCOACH Firm has an AMAZING sales program that is perfect for small business owners and sales professionals alike. Commonly, participants have increased their sales conversion rate by 150-200% or more over the course of the 12 weeks. Check out more details HERE and feel free to DM me with any questions or to learn more.