If you're like most small businesses, you send the same marketing material to everyone regardless of whether they are a prospect, suspect or first-time buyer. Unfortunately, this is a very ineffective way of marketing your business.

The fact is that everyone comes to your business at a particular stage of need. Some people are just hearing about your company for the first time, others know about you but just want additional information, and some are ready and willing to buy on the spot. However, treating all these customer stages the same is a drastic mistake.

By learning to market to your customer types based on their stage of need, you will be able to move people from Suspect to Prospect to Buyer in a much more efficient and effective manner.

In every business, you'll find the following four customer stages.

Suspects
Suspects are people you think might be interested in one or more of your product/service offerings. A suspect has not established any contact whatsoever with your company. When you define a target market, you have essentially created a bucket of Suspects. You're goal is to get these suspects to raise their hand and let you know they are interested.

Prospects
A Prospect has made some sort of communication with your company. Maybe they signed up for your newsletter or called your company to ask a question. At this point, they have made some type of inquiry but HAVE NOT made a purchase. Your goal is to get your prospects motivated to make that first purchase.

First-Time Buyers
Once a Prospect makes a purchase, they are classified as a First-Time Buyer. Your goal for First-Time Buyers is to get them to become a Repeat Buyer. In other words, you want to retain them as customers. It is much easier and less costly to market to existing customers than to Prospects or Suspects. This is why the Integral Marketing System™ stresses customer retention.

Repeat Buyers
A Repeat Buyer is any customer that has purchased from you more than once. Once a customer makes that leap into repeat buyer status, the goal is not only to retain their business, but to move them up to more profitable products and services. Repeat Buyers are your most valuable customer group. Even if they become temporarily maxed out on your offerings, they can be a rich source of quality referrals.

You're now going to learn how to create a compelling offer with a very low point of entry for your Suspects. After this, you will create a different offer geared to your Prospects, another for First-Time Buyers and yet another for your Repeat Buyers. As you move people through the stages, your offers will focus less on creating trust and more on selling higher-profit goods and services. Notice I said "focus less" on creating trust. Your marketing materials will continue to build on the trust you have created, but the need for proof is much less for an existing customer than it is for the Suspect or Prospect customer types.

Weekly feedback question:

Which one of the above mentioned is your "bottle neck"?

Talk to you again soon, love to hear your feedback on this one :--

Ockert

PS. Drop me a mail ockert@icon.co.za and I'll send you a special report on how to to create different offers to the above mentioned....of course it's fre.e