The Buying Process – Late vs Early Stage Buyers

The buying process for every individual is different.  There are visitors who are in the early stages of buying wanting to learn more about the product or service, and late stage buyers who know what they want and want it now. 

Are you confused?   

Most of you realise this contradiction and typically opt for building a website around the late stage buying process.  Why?  Because it is easier.  Though appeasing late stage buyers is less of a challenge (many are still not doing a good job at it!) a greater understanding of how both buying types interact on your site is important.

Early Stage Buyers:

Through the lengthening of the engagement process with early stage buyers, you are persuading visitors, and building a relationship. 

Recent reports from Neilson Netratings show more than 90% of New Zealanders research online before purchasing either on or offline.  Another study done by MIT proves visitors will opt for branded websites and expect to pay more with the hopes the buying/learning process is a pleasant experience.  With well known brands, there is an expectation the website will deliver on varying needs. If the website does not meet this expectation, customers are more inclined to send an email or pick up the phone to pursue information.  However, this fragmented approach to the engagement process typically leads to an offline purchase and/or credibility lost. 

Feedback from visitors define the early stage buying process.

The intent of early stage buyers is to educate and to eventually purchase.  The more you engage and educate the visitors, the greater the likelihood they will eventually buy from you.  It may not be now, but they will come back.

Early stage buyers are looking for customer reviews, testimonials, feature and benefit driven copy around products and services, and product comparisons.

Persuading visitors through copy becomes your sole focus at this stage, if you don’t, your competitor will.   These are the visitors who require convincing to buy from you. 

Late Stage Buyers:

Late stage buyers are very direct in their intentions.  They know what they are looking for and want it now.  There is a certain level of unrest with late stage buyers until they have found exactly what they are looking for.  With a goal oriented approach, the act of persuading is not required for late stage buyers, the emphasis is more on the ability to convert. 

In order to enhance the ability for late stage buyers to find what they are looking for, you need to have prominent search boxes, logical search results, intuitive navigation, and clear calls to action in the body of the website (within the active window).

The ability to further sell to late stage buyers works best only after they have achieved their goal.  Can you imagine walking into a clothing store and asking the sales person for a shirt, and they reply, “Before I show you a shirt, would you like cuff links with that??”  How about McDonald’s staff asking you for fries before you order your burger.  It doesn’t work.  The same concept applies online.
  
The more hoops visitors jump through to reach their goal, the more likely they will leave frustrated, never to return.  Branded websites have proven to be poor at converting but still perform because visitors will endure the “clunky” process to get where the need to go.  All because of the equity in the brand.

Regardless of buying process stage, the name of the game is providing the right information at the right time. 

Stay tuned, next weeks article will discuss in greater detail the differences between the act of converting traffic and how it relates to persuasion.