How To Tailor Copy To Customers In Different Stages Of The Buying Cycle

One of the foundational copywriting strategies is to tailor your copy to your customers’ buying cycle.

Regardless of the time your buying cycle takes, you need to communicate effectively at each stage to move customers along through the cycle.

This means you need to work your copy in much the same way you work your face-to-face sales.

The Personal Sales Model

Here are the core steps of my preferred personal selling model:

1. Build rapport with your customers by building your credibility and by tuning into your customer’s agenda.

2. Analyze your customer’s needs in order to find the pain or problem(s) your customer wants solved.

3. Project the possibility of a solution in your customer’s mind by “showing” your customer how your product and service will meet their needs.

4. Overcome your customer’s objections in order reinforce your solution and close the sale.

5. Deliver on the promises you’ve made to ensure customer satisfaction, which includes helping your customer implement the solution and achieve the promised benefits.

If you want online sales, you need to tailor your copy to achieve these same goals.

The Buying Cycle

Clearly, the buying cycle is going to mirror the personal sales model. You need to understand both to tailor your copy effectively.

Here are the four steps your customer goes through in order to buy a product or service:

1. Recognize their need to solve a problem or alleviate a painful situation.

2. Research information that will help them to understand their problems and the possible solutions.

3. Analyze the providers who can solve their problem or alleviate their pain.

4. Decide which business will provide the solution they want.

In order to make the sale, your copy needs to address both processes effectively.

The First Formula For Your Copy

Rapport + Needs Analysis = Need Recognition + Information Research

Find out what they need. Find out what resonates with them. Then, write both into your copy.

This may be one stop in your funnel or it may take a few hops. Do whatever it takes to build rapport and empathize with your customer’s needs. If you do this right, customers will want to follow your funnel. You won’t need pushy tactics to get the sale.

The Second Formula For Your Copy

Solutions + Propose & Close = Information Research + Competitor Analysis

Your customers have a problem. You’re offering a solution. Your solution needs to appeal to your customers.

If you qualify your leads and offer true value, then all you need to do is create the solution in their minds so clearly they know yours is the solution for them.

The Final Formula For Your Copy

Service = Purchase Decision

When you pull the right customers in to spiral down the right funnel, you reach your ultimate goal of landing the sale. But your copy can’t stop there. You have to reinforce the effectiveness of your solution throughout your customer’s experience. This continuous branding helps you retain and grow your customer.

Conclusion

There are no magic words that can accomplish all of this. You must tailor your copy to your customers and your business to create the funnel that works for you. You do that by keeping your customers in mind. If you forget who they are and what they want, your customers will spiral right out of your funnel and into a competitor’s.

^{Adapted image by AndyWilson}