08 December 1999

A “Buyers” Strategy…

What is the whole point of Internet marketing, or for that matter, marketing in general?

The goal is to turn a potential buyer into an active buyer.

The great thing about Internet advertising is that it is much more measurable than offline channels like TV commercials, magazine ads, and newspaper ads.

It looks like this:

Offline is not as predictable:

Traffic –> Product Awareness/Branding –> Website Traffic (??)  Conversion (where did it come from) –> Campaign ROI (not sure)

Where as the Internet provides much more decisive and predictable results:

Traffic –> Landing Page –> Conversion (YES/NO) –> Overall ROI

You know exactly which campaign and more times than not, which keywords are producing the sales within your campaign. This is powerful because anything that is measurable can be improved upon.

And…

Anything that can be improved upon, can increase your overall profits! Powerful stuff!

So, back to the core message of this post…

There are ways to expedite the process of turning a potential customer into a customer. Often times people do not even know they are a potential customer because they have not found the product they are looking for yet.

And sometimes people will never become “buyers” because they are either looking for “freebies” or they are much too early in the buying lifecycle, the information phase.

So how do you catch people late in the buying lifecycle? These are the people that already have their credit cards out on the table and are waiting to buy, or those people who are in the product review process and just need to find the “best fit” to what they are looking for.

I pretty much answered the question in the last sentence.

(1) People with their credit cards on the table

These are people that are probably the most serious buyers. These people are hungry to buy something, almost like buyers on Boxing Day, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday (three of the best online sales days of the year).

How do you trigger these people?

The easiest route to buyers is to target the “buy”, “purchase” and “order” keywords. For example, you could target the broader source of the keyword, like:

“buy 42” plasma TV”

Or you could be much more precise (and deliver a much more precise result):

“buy Panasonic TH 42” Widescreen Plasma”

Either way, your keywords will be attracting buyers. If you can deliver a product that fits their search, then you will be leveraging people late in the buy cycle. Note that the more relevant you are, the easier it is to convert.

What about starting your keyword research with buy type keywords? Let’s plug a few keywords into the free Google keyword tool and see what we get.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Typing in the term “buy”, these are a few of the results:

-buy prescription drugs
-buy songs
-buy vista
-buy used car
-buy a psp
-buy a Nintendo wii
-buy software
-buy contacts
-buy pictures
-buy flash
-buy a tv
-buy life insurance
-buy Mario cart
-buy bicycle

You could then elaborate on this search, but typing “buy bicycle” or “buy a psp” into the search. The more niche specific you get, the easier it will be to deliver the most relevant product, thus leading to higher conversions. You could also use this with the “order” and “purchase” and even “sale” or “cheap” keywords.

(2) People in the review “state” of the buying cycle

As consumers get smarter, the research they put into each and every purchase tends to increase. There are an abundance of reviews, ranking sites, forums, and blogs out there that discuss products and give overall product information.

Attracting people in the “review” state is also a great way to catch people further along in the buying lifecycle. People tend to get informed, review and then buy. If you can offer someone a quality product review or recommend another product and give the reasons why, you will likely be able to achieve a much easier SELL.

The types of keyword phrases that people search for in this phase are as follows:

PRODUCT A review
Compare PRODUCT A
Does PRODUCT A work
Review of PRODUCT A
PRODUCT A Scam
PRODUCT A Rating

Replace PRODUCT A with any product and you have yourself some great keyword phrases that will target people in the “review” state. These people convert and usually do not need too much more convincing before they buy.

For example:

Wealthy Affiliate Review
Compare Wealthy Affiliate
Does Wealthy Affiliate Work
Review of Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate Scam
Wealthy Affiliate Rating

Or you can work in the reverse to come up with some “niche” ideas. Use the Google Keyword tool again for this.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

I typed in “review of” into the search and here is what I came up with:

-review of digital cameras
-review of 21
-review of Nikon coolpix
-review of Twilight
-review of vista
-review of refrigerators
-review of mattresses
-review of gas grills
-review of finance
-review of Bluetooth

These are just a few. You could then elaborate on this research by isolating one of the searches like “review of digital camera”.

Here were the corresponding results:

-compact digital camera review
-review of canon digital camera
-review of Panasonic digit camera
-review of sonic camera
-review of beach camera
-review of best digital camera
-etc.

That alone is the start of a highly relevant, high converting campaign. You could do this with pretty much an topic you want “review of anti-spyware”, “review of ppc ebooks”, “review of tractors”…ANYTHING!

So, in order to look for buyers, you need to know where they are “hiding”. We have given you the two best ways to find and capitalize off of consumers whom are late in their buying lifecycle.

Now go try it for yourself (I think you will like the results).

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