Why don’t customers buy now?

Today I’m working with a client who is finding it hard to get prospects to buy.

We are working through a list of possible reasons.  My first view is that more advertising / publicity is probably not the reason.  I think that it’s more to do with the offer, the positioning, the brand promise and perceptions of value and immediate need.

Later is an option

Buying now is obviously what the client brand wants.

But for the prospect, why would they?

Deferring risk is part of the prospect’s decision making.  And as marketers we tend to presume that our logic, our world view must prevail.

But the reasons people don’t buy can also be

• awareness
• trust
• world view
• perceptions about value

We wrote a list of all the reasons someone would not buy this product.  Try it for yourself.

Competitors exist too

Some people will buy from your competitors.  Can you find out why they chose them?  Do you have anecdotes about customers trying another brand and coming back to yours?

Without publishing it, could you assemble anecdotes about your competitors, classify them and produce a rank order of WHY people choose them over you?

Then compare that to your positioning and brand promise.
Where do you really stand out, where are you broadly the same?

That will give your sales team clues….. I call these “golden questions” and they are defined by Don Peppers as questions whose answers tell you a lot more than the question implies.

So, if the customer is really concerned about something…. what do you ask / tell them?
If they are really concerned about price and only price ….what do you ask / tell them?

Today is later

Now is usually better than later.