Recently, I mentioned that there are many individuals who have not reached out to request your products/services simply because they do not have an urgent need for them yet.
In prospecting, there’s something known as affinity audiences and in-market audiences.
The affinity audiences are these people who currently have no urgent need for what you do or sell. But then, they may be seeing your work, having you as top-of-mind, and desiring to reach out someday.
In-market audiences are those who are currently asking questions or making active searches around your products/services. These kinds of people display more immediate purchase intent.
This is why you don’t judge the success of your marketing by the number of immediate sales. It’s best to judge the success of your marketing by the number of people you’re converting from being total strangers to becoming familiar with and liking your brand.
Now, the salient question is, “How do I trigger urgency in the minds of my affinity audiences so they become purchase-ready?” I have three answers to this:
1) Create Offers:
Offers are opportunities you create to help your audience achieve the goals they’ve always wanted to achieve but have been delaying, either due to indecisiveness or just because they’re currently busy with other important things.
For instance, there are times you knew you needed something but kept delaying it until you saw an ad that gave you a 30% offer with a 72-hour deadline, and immediately, you got an opportunity to achieve the goal you’ve always wanted to achieve all the while.
I’ve created offers several times that people have benefited from by jumping on them, and I’ve also benefited from other people’s offers as well. If I hadn’t seen the offer, only God knows how long I would still have lingered before eventually making that purchase decision.
However, creating successful offers is a science you’ll need to learn. You can create offers that are watery if you lack an understanding of buyers’ behaviours and how to trigger them in your favour.
2) Leverage Interest Groups:
The second thing I’ll talk about is paying attention to and leveraging interest groups to locate your in-market audiences. You should learn to locate where active discussions or conversations are happening around the problems your products/services solve.
There are places where conversations are happening daily around what you do. How many of those places are you in? Remember, opportunities always flow in circles. I can’t overemphasize that.
By being in places like this and being actively engaged in offering value, you increase your chances of attracting purchase-ready audiences.
3) Leverage Critical Seasons:
Almost every business has a time of the year when sales volume is naturally at its peak. I stand to be corrected, though. But I figured out a long time ago that consumer needs and urgency of purchase have a strong correlation with seasons.
If you’re selling clothes, you would know there are special seasons for such a business. If you’re a fashion designer, you also know there are seasons.
Sometimes, it’s triggered by the idea of the new year and the behaviour of people when a year is new. Sometimes, it’s triggered by the idea of the end of the year. Some other times, it’s triggered by what’s happening in another industry related to or complementary to yours.
Tapping into these critical seasons to create offers for your wider audiences also increases your chances of triggering urgency really fast.
I remain your BrandCore Strategist.
