What do your customers need to know before they buy?

How are you making sure that your marketing covers those needs?

Hi Reader,

Creating marketing content for your audience is great and all, but if you don’t show them the things they need to know to make that purchase, they will only keep a somewhat superficial attachment to your brand, and most won’t end up purchasing.

They need to be aware of your offer, but for every business there are a few extra things people need to know. These things creep closer to sales, although they should be delivered earlier in the process wherever possible.

For an ecommerce business, people do need to know the final price. They need to know what shipping and fees will be. That’s why so many brands do fixed price shipping and mention it all over their website.

That is a marketing tactic built on the back of a knowledge gap.

Emily Prentiss said it best "What Else Do I Need To Know?"

They might need to know the person they’ll be working with. Not whether they drink coffee or tea, but their values.

If they will be learning from you, they’ll probably need to know that A) this person can teach and B) this person teaches in a way that they understand. That’s often why a taster of sorts is a webinar.

If you host a community, they might need to know how many people are in the group and the kinds of conversations that take place. If you host Zoom calls as part of it, a quick photo of the group shared every week on your Stories with a note about a couple topics you chatted about would cover most of that.

You can somewhat figure these things out based on the questions you get, and what kind of engagement you see on certain content. However, people cannot react to something you never share, so it can’t all come from public information.

I’ve surveyed my clients and specifically asked them what hesitations they had and what ultimately made them commit to the purchase. That has been invaluable information that I have then built into my sales process, on my sales page, calls and the proposal. Other feedback has been added to my marketing, on top of what I already knew they needed to know.

Other times, market research on forums like Reddit can show you what you haven’t yet realised.

Ultimately, this all comes back to three main questions:

What are the things about your industry, brand, offer and how you deliver it that your customer needs to know before they purchase?
How will you showcase those things?
How will you make sure that those methods of delivery cover those needs?

As an example, if they need to see your teaching style, and you choose to do a webinar, how will you format that webinar so that you teach them something specifically in a way that is very aligned with how the course works, so that they walk away with that assuredness? Or, could you release the first video of the course for free, with an email signup? There are countless options and micro decisions at play.

That’s what makes it fun!